I condemn Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) Bintulu member of parliament, Tiong King Sing for using the parliamentary opportunity to maliciously attack Tan Sri Noor Hisham for “fearing death” and thus, not going to Sabah, causing morale blow to all frontline medical, military, police and charity personnel.
Anyone who has personally heard the content and tone of Tiong King Sing’s speech in the Parliament will agree that it is false and malicious.
Tan Sri Noor Hisham has clarified at the press conference of the Ministry of Health, that he went to Sabah at the end of August this year to inspect the preparations for the Sabah state election. Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia on Public Health, Jemilah Mahmood also went to Sabah to observe the local epidemiological control situation. Therefore, Tiong King Sing should apologise for the inaccurate allegation that neither Tan Sri Noor Hisham nor his assistant director went to Sabah.
As a senior minister at the ministerial level, Tiong King Sing issued harsh and unconfirmed accusations without doing the most basic simple verification, showing his unprofessional attitude.
If he wants to make an accusation, he should ask the Minister of Health and the Deputy Minister who has the rights to mobilise resources to go to the field (“turun padang”) to go to Sabah; as a Sarawak’s member of parliament, he should instead propose to the Minister of Health the epidemic prevention strategy of Sarawak.
Tiong King Sing cited the example of comprehensive testing of more than tens of millions of people in Qingdao, China, is to wrongly blame Tan Sri Noor Hisham. Malaysia does not have enough testing equipment and coronavirus testing laboratories because of the Perikatan Nasional government’s decision in allocating resources. It is not something that a director of general (DG) owns or can decide.
I call on the government to set up sufficient testing equipment and COVID-19 testing laboratories at the international airport and Malaysia-Singapore checkpoints so that international business travellers can resume travel, which is crucial for Malaysia to resume international economic and trade activities.