In the last two (2) years, the government under both PM Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri have demonstrated time and again to announce incomplete, incomprehensible SOPs for Covid-19, only to retract or clarify them in the next day of two, creating massive confusion, panic and frustration.
As the government toys with moving to the “endemic phase” of Covid-19, the key difference will be the change of SOP that will affect businesses, jobs, schools, and our social lives. In his statement, Senior Minister Hishammudin said that the final decision will be made by the Covid-19 Pandemic Management Committee, chaired by PM. This is not good enough, and let’s not waste time waiting for this announcement and instead let’s disclose the proposal for feedback and scrutiny.
Conducting public hearings will allow for the removal of useless SOP’s that are not effective. One example of a set of SOPs that did not make any sense was the SOP for movie theater as highlighted by my fellow comrade here : https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/10/02/sops-for-cinemas-dont-make-sense-says-former-deputy-minister/. I assume it is because the decision makers did not frequent the cinemas as much. However, this could have easily been avoided if a few public hearing sessions were done. SOPs are required to keep people safe but if it is not doing its sole purpose, then they are just restrictions in place for no reason.
Many cries on social media about how restricting the opening hours of restaurants were not helpful as everyone had to rush during dinner time to get their food rather than naturally eating at a time they would. This would have spread out the people crowding restaurants, not to mention the food delivery riders all queuing up in front of a restaurant from 7pm onwards back when everything was shut at 8pm.
Public consultation is necessary not to just remove ineffective SOPs but also to get public buy in. A lot of these SOPs have to be discussed to see if the Malaysian society is able to accept it. We are moving to this endemic stage as a nation. These decisions affect a wide range of public and the government cannot strong-arm decisions made as the new rules.
Public hearings are a form of deliberative democracy and it is important for public participation as the pandemic is a social issue. This is the problem of a nation and it can only be truly addressed when we work hand-in-hand with the public.