KUALA LUMPUR – A group of netizens has launched an online petition calling for the resignation of International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.
The petition, accompanied by the hashtag #AzminLetakJawatan on Change.org, is gaining momentum, with more than 25,000 signatures gathered in the span of hours.
Checks found the petition is gaining at least one signature every second at press time.
The organisers of the petition provided only a brief description of why Azmin should step down.
“Hanya satu sebab: gagal berfungsi sebagai Menteri Kanan yang diharapkan. Titik! (Only one reason: failure to function as a senior minister as hoped for. Full stop!)” it said.
The calls for Azmin to resign come after his ministry reportedly approved the operations of nearly 100,000 companies for the full lockdown earlier this week.
Earlier today, Azmin had said that the approval letters via the Covid-19 Intelligent Management System (CIMS) 3.0 system under his ministry are only given out after the relevant other ministries provide Miti with a confirmation.
He said that 15 ministries have been using CIMS 3.0 to facilitate application reviews for sectors under their purview.
The approvals, coupled with many essential businesses facing difficulty in registering with Miti’s glitch-ridden CIMS 3.0 website, are believed to have contributed to the mounting anger against Azmin.
The registrations are crucial for the companies to operate, as the employees require Miti’s approval letters to travel to their workplaces across districts and state lines.
Furthermore, the anger of the netizens is also fuelled by the spike in Covid-19 cases recently, despite the nationwide movement control order (MCO) over the last few weeks and full lockdown earlier this week, with a high number of clusters coming from workplaces, such as factories and construction sites.
Netizen Syafiqa Aziz who signed the petition, left a comment on the Change.org petition.
“Total lockdown but still allowing non-essential company to operate! Tak telus!! Health and well-being of Malaysian citizen is way more important than economy! (sic)” Shafiqa said.
“Economy can be rebuild while death cannot be avoided! (sic)”
Another signee Alexander Su said: “He (Azmin) is part of this current mess in Malaysia.”
Siti Shurazirah said: “He’s totally failed! Never think of citizen (sic). Total lockdown but he approves so many companies to operate. Please resign!!”
Meanwhile, Steven Ho said Azmin “is good for nothing” and “fails to perform in his capacity as a minister”.
“(He is) Also a liar.”
The hashtag #AzminLetakJawatan is now also a top trending topic on Twitter, with 3,239 tweets and mentions at press time. – The Vibes, June 3, 2021
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