Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob cabinet’s agreement to political institutional reforms must not only possess a set timeline for its execution but more importantly accompanied by reforms in the economy and public healthcare. Only a whole-of-society approach towards reforms in politics, economy and public healthcare, can there be a united focus to win the battle against Covid-19 and rescue the beleaguered economy to save lives and livelihoods.
There must be a RM45 billion Economic Turnaround Plan and waiver of interest during the bank loan moratorium period as well as moving from one-off financial “band aid” to regular and periodical financial assistance to normalize the economy that has sustained more than RM500 billion in economic losses to once again enjoy sustainable economic growth. Further a National COVID-19 Reset Plan is needed to move from a policy of containment that seeks to eliminate COVID-19 to one of mitigation of living with COVID-19.
A full reopening of the economy will require a combination of both accelerated vaccination to achieve herd immunity and implementation of mass test screening of Find, Test, Trace, Isolate and Support plus vaccination (FTTIS+V) as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as ensure our hospitals and health services are fully manned and funded with sufficient ICU beds, medicines, and facilities to care for sick patients. The survival rates of COVID-19 patients in public hospitals must be equal or near the levels in private hospitals.
The Finance Ministry must urgently inject RM45 billion to top up the RM65 billion COVID-19 Fund which is nearly exhausted after having only RM8.6 billion left to spend for the second half of 2021 compared to RM18.4 billion already spent for the first half of 2021. With the RM38 billion used in 2020, this meant that the total spent under the Covid-19 fund up to the first half of 2021 amounts to RM56.4 billion.
This leaves only RM8.6 billion left from the RM65 billion COVID-19 Fund for the remaining six months of 2021, less than 50% of the RM18.4 billion spent for the first 6 months of the year. In other words, only RM27 billion will be spent in 2021 as compared to RM38 billion in 2020 on battling COVID-19 and providing financial aid.
RM8.6 billion is not enough to battle and win COVID-19 or pull the economy out of the recession for the second half of the year. If RM38 billion can be spent to battle COVID-19 and on financial aid in 2020, RM27 billion for 2021 is definitely insufficient. What is required is an immediate injection of RM45 billion to save lives and livelihood.
The seven political reforms outlined by Ismail yesterday are based on what was offered by the failed former Prime Minister Mahiaddin Md Yassin in a last-ditch effort to save his government, but rejected by the opposition as untrustworthy. As the new Prime Minister and to show his sincerity and commitment that he is serious about implementing these reforms, Ismail must do substantially better than his predecessor, particularly reforms in the economy and public healthcare.