PRIME Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s frequent flip-flops and poor governance has led to the downgrade by Fitch Ratings from A- to BBB+, said Lim Guan Eng. 

“Political instability and poor governance are not helped by Muhyiddin government’s frequent policy flip-flops or broken promises and sheer incompetence,” said the DAP secretary-general in a statement today.

He said some of the broken promises include the automatic extension of the bank loan moratorium, withdrawals of EPF contributions, increasing monthly welfare aid payments including the unemployed to RM1,000, proceeding with the KL-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project and continuing with the iconic Penang ferry service. 

Lim said such poor governance has led to doubts about Muhyiddin’s commitment towards accountability and transparency. 

“This was highlighted by two policy changes of preferring negotiated tenders to open tenders, and appointment of unqualified politicians to head or be directors in government-linked corporations (GLCs) with public assets valued at tens of billions of ringgit. 

“Muhyiddin’s lack of commitment to open tenders took an international dimension following the revelations by Singapore’s Transport Minister Ong Ye that the main reason why both countries could not reach an agreement on the HSR project was because Malaysia wanted to do away with the jointly-tendered asset company (AssetsCo).  

“Ong added that through an open and transparent international tender, the AssetCo would have ensured accountability to both countries,” said Lim. 

He said the way Perikatan Nasional, under Muhyiddin, had been replacing qualified professionals in GLCs with unqualified politicians had resulted in the MACC probe against Prasarana Malaysia Bhd.

“Whether MACC investigations are initiated due to political reasons or similar political motivations will lead to MACC abandoning their probe, will be keenly awaited by the public as a test of MACC’s independence and professionalism,” said Lim. 

He said the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic also showed the incompetence of the government. 

“At a time when Singapore had obtained delivery and began mass vaccinations, Malaysia still had to wait another two months. 

“The excuse given that Malaysia does not have the financial resources like Singapore is ridiculous and unacceptable when the cost involved is RM2.1 billion. 

“As a former finance minister, let me state categorically Malaysia can definitely find the RM 2.1 billion to secure early delivery of the vaccines.  

“Such a stingy and miserly refusal to make available RM2.1 billon is a bigger blunder and more incompetent than Malaysia’s downgrade in sovereign credit ratings by Fitch recently,” said the Bagan MP. – January 6, 2021.