I WOULD like to applaud the government for having a roadmap via Pelan Pemulihan Negara. We have heard many comments on this plan.

Some are positive but many are negative due to the lack of details. However, you must appreciate some details of the plan are being explained via different ministries and National Security Council announcements, in the last few days.

It is demotivating to read from The Economist normalcy index that Malaysia is projected to be the last to recover from the pandemic among the 50 largest economies.

We hope that the list will be updated in August when our daily vaccination rates are optimised, as announced by Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin, the minister in charge of vaccinations.

Nevertheless, having a road map certainly helps. It will provide us with a good basis to visualize the scenario on the intensity of lockdowns forthcoming, and the socio-economic impact implied.

More importantly, the roadmap will help us identify areas where boosting of additional resources in critical tasks and intensifying mitigation measures are needed – to correctly give insight, modify or compress the whole recovery duration, particularly phase 1 and phase 2.

The roadmap also highlights the clockwork nature of the strategy to squash the covid threat decisively. It requires military precision.

In other words, the possibility of miss-step or margin of errors is extremely high. Time is not on our side. If something happens, it will be disastrous and will cost us months maybe even years to recover, to get back on track because it may result in a fourth major and possibly a runaway spike, God forbid.

The economies of Europe and the US are recovering, and are currently only a few months ahead of us – maybe only two months.

We must not panic and concede to all the demands of the export industries. The fear of the industries losing a few supply contracts does not warrant going overboard.

The fact is the Delta and Lambda variants are also causing complications in these economies while they are opening up.

The recent lobby for the supply chain of industries approved by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and companies to be allowed to operate – opening up probably 80% of the economy – is insane and will only defeat the purpose of the lockdown.

We just received news that more industries in enhanced movement control order areas will now be allowed to open. News that will anger everyone else complying with the lockdown.

We invite the public to implore the government to bite the bullet and go for a lockdown whenever necessary but make it count.

It must be supported with targeted testing and tracing, and while we push for an intense vaccination campaign within the next two months especially in lockdown areas.

It is imperative for the sake of national health and economy that all factories, big or small, comply with Employees’ Minimum Standards of Housing, Accommodations and Amenities Act 1990, which guides the basic minimum standards of workers housing.

Factories cannot and must not be allowed to operate until they comply with these requirements fully. Failure to do so will render everything all those who have sacrificed for the last 15 months meaningless.

The factories should be made to cease operations completely rather than be the cause of the undoing of the present EMCO.

Those who may not be able to comply with the act quickly enough should consider using the low occupancy budget hotels as an interim solution, so authorities can test and trace effectively.

The government is trying to ramp up the vaccination programme, to achieve an average of 300,000 doses a day daily in July and subsequently 450,000 doses by mid-August.

We must make sure migrant workers – regardless of their legal status – are vaccinated too.

Mobilise all available resources to achieve this especially in manpower and vaccine delivery. It needs to be a whole of government approach. All hands on deck.

Political interest or concern should be the last thing on anybody’s mind. The latest contradiction between the NSC announcement and the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism is an example that should not be repeated.

Unfortunately, the lockdown as per the recovery plan entails total commercial inactivity of most SMEs and the informal sector, and their sense of hope for the rest of the year.

Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, the Minister of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship Development & Co-operatives said 49% of SMEs or 580,000 businesses could fail if the MCO continues into August, which may cause more than 7 million people to be unemployed.

Industries Unite – representing 115 trade associations, chambers of commerce and an estimated 3.3 million businesses – said Malaysia is at breaking point, economically speaking, and demands a new strategy to allow the opening of the economy sooner rather than later.

I had the pleasure of listening to director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah for three hours twice.

Once with the Malay Chamber of Commerce and another session with the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Malaysia to understand why some decision made or wasn’t made.

I can vouch the Ministry of Health is doing its best. Therefore, I would like the government to consider enhancements within the next 30 days:

1. The government must be ready to provide more economic or strategic assistance to the B40 and M40 groups, and micro and small business according to the phases.

This time it must be designed to spur real economic recovery before we enter Phase 4. The strategy must be in place or the business would close down within the next few months.

2. Provide a real moratorium for all, interest-free, with a fixed minimum cost per loan, but not leave it to banks to decide, at least until all of us enter phase 4.

What has been announced is “Indah khabar dari rupa”. It must include all other credit and leasing companies.

What has been offered is akin to rubbing salt to wound as only those who can afford will not accept the moratorium. In the end, it’s creating more debt from those affected by the pandemic, despite the banks making billions because of it last year.

3. The moratorium must also be given to those who are in default. No foreclosure actions must be taken.

4. Consider more cash transfers to B40 and M40 for six months, and monthly food coupons to avoid wastage and leakages through many foodbank initiatives or from MPs’ funding.

5. Consider wage subsidies for SMEs for six months instead of four, but not cover those in the top 20% of earners.

6. The government must have a mechanism to continuously engage diverse stakeholders from experts, to associations to the man on the street.

At the moment, it is a vicious cycle of a government-knows-best announcements, the rakyat channelling their collective anger on social media, followed by an embarrassing U-turn causing erosion of trust.

7. Any opening up of economic sectors must be based on historical and scientific data, including which businesses will likely increase the spread of Covid-19. We can’t decide this based on the economic interest of a few at the expense of others.

The point is, we need to make sure that no one is left behind and our value as human life is not determined by the GDP we contribute.

The government needs to show more empathy. We cannot take it lightly when some of the rakyat are surrendering by waving white flags and worse, taking their own lives. Every life matters.

Recommendation by the Ministry of Health must be given the utmost consideration, and supersede others, especially in deciding which sectors to open first, rather than based on which company has more employees or the value of their contract with their clients abroad.

As stated by Noor Hisham: “You can cheat the ministry, but you can’t cheat the virus.”

The government is advised not to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. The RM150 billion latest “assistance” will mean nothing if doesn’t reach the people, nor it will mean much if it is too little to matter or not disbursed promptly, whatever the assistance is called.

We have much rebuilding and resetting to do in 2022 but let’s keep everyone alive and our public health situation under control for now before we prematurely start spending on IR4.0, 5G or any other stuff that guzzles up our current limited resources.

One thing for sure, the gap between the rich and the poor will be wider, the deprivation will be more felt, and the wealth gap between races will be more glaring, as a result of this pandemic so more work needs to be done for Malaysia to achieve it’s true potential for all Malaysians. – July 11, 2021.

* Ahmad Yazid Othman is a senior fellow at MTEM.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.