Opinion

Letter – Are politicians putting profits over public health? – J.D. Lovrenciear

Govt must come clean over Covid-19 vaccine delay

Updated 5 years ago · Published on 29 Jan 2021 10:30AM

Letter – Are politicians putting profits over public health? – J.D. Lovrenciear
So many other nations in the region have beaten Malaysia to securing and deploying Covid-19 vaccines. – AFP pic, January 29, 2021

THE latest news report on a livestreamed dialogue session on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Facebook page is extremely worrying.

The dialogue, where former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and former health minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad were also present, saw Anwar raising a very serious allegation – and one that was pushed out by the social media mill earlier.

He said: “When it concerns the people, even the question of public health becomes a means to make profits. What kind of people are they?”

This is beyond human indecency. In fact, to even say that it is an atrocity is just putting it mildly.

How could the unelected government of the day even think of making a tidy profit from the life-saving Covid-19 vaccine that is desperately needed by Malaysians as much as the world?

Where is the categorical and fundamentally moral and ethical imperative that demands foremost duty to citizenry in times of a national crisis affecting the health and well-being of an entire population?

And, it seems that the issue of some party or parties looking to make a profit from securing the vaccine was “even raised by those within the Perikatan Nasional fold, including some from Umno”.

No small wonder that social media was already whispering about this matter, which we could very likely be led to believe as fake news by those with vested interests.

Surely, MPs – one of them being a potential prime minister in the eyes of millions of citizens – would not dare make such a blatant, fraudulent claim in public if they did not have the facts.

Hence, citizens must demand that the government come clean now.

Investigators do not have to wait for an official complaint to swing into action, as this involves national security.

Imagine, what if the secretive agenda to make a killing results in a delay in securing the vaccine, leading to more Covid-19 deaths?

This is just too much. It is horrifying. More preposterous than the country’s further fall in the corruption rankings.

The entire nation – leaders, politicians, policymakers and right-thinking citizens, including religious heads – is duty-bound to demand transparency and full accountability over this delay in securing the vaccine. So many other nations in the region have beaten Malaysia to it.

Did our leaders put profits before saving lives?

If even this most critical and paramount government decision is laced with corrupt priorities, and if this is allowed to be swept under the carpet like many other things in the past, then all of us would be traitors to nationhood.

We need honest answers, honourable prime minister. – The Vibes, January 29, 2021

J.D. Lovrenciear reads The Vibes

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