PSB Batu Kitang chief: S’wak govt should follow Putrajaya’s total lockdown

Liu Thian Leong

KUCHING (May 31): Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) Batu Kitang branch chairman Liu Thian Leong has expressed his disappointment with the Sarawak government for not following the federal government’s move in imposing a total lockdown in the state.

“To our great astonishment and disappointment, the Sarawak government seems to be apathetic towards the tightened measures announced by the Prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin,” he said in a press statement yesterday.

He expressed his concern that by not imposing a total lockdown in Sarawak, it would pose increasing challenges and burden to the frontliners, especially the medical personnel who were already overwhelmed and overstretched by the ever-increasing workloads, besides facing the risk of being infected themselves.

Liu said the other states, including Sabah, where its Covid-19 new cases were less than half of what Sarawak had registered, decided to follow the federal government’s move to impose a total lockdown in the state.

“Why can’t the (Sarawak) government take up more stringent SOP in line with the whole nation so that the vertical upsurge of Covid-19 can hopefully be flattened?”

Sarawak had enforced the Movement Control Order from May 29 to June 11.

However, the Prime Minister’s Office, had on May 27, announced the imposition of a nationwide total lockdown from June 1 to 14, which was necessitated by Malaysia’s deteriorating Covid-19 situation.

Sarawak now has a different set of SOP from the rest of the country, which led to some confusion among the people.

Liu said there seemed to be too many political heads rather than medical experts in running and coordinating the state management of the pandemic.

“So much so that the management itself becomes a crisis. This could be among the reasons behind the flip-flopping in decisions made many times.”

In view of this, Liu called for the SDMC to be structured and streamlined to display professionalism and expertise, in order to be in tandem with the expectations of the people.

Meanwhile, Liu said the RM1.4 billion Sarawakku Sayang Special Assistance (BKSS) 6.0 package unveiled by the Sarawak government recently had not properly focused on the plight of the private sector, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

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