Kuala Lumpur, 15 Jan 2021 (The Capital Post)- Bagan MP YB Lim Guan Eng questioned over the authority of Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in a press statement released in his official Twitter account.
In the statement he stated, the King in his royal emergency decree did not mention anything about suspension of Parliament and State Assembly while the royal decree mentioning that the emergency can end sooner than 1st August was also not mentioned in the emergency proclamation signed by Muhyiddin.
He also stated that by suspending parliament Muhyiddin no longer fears that he has lost parliamentary majority, with only 109 out of 220 MPs supporting his administration.
In dissatisfaction, the Bagan MP also stated that emergency allows Muhyiddin Yassin on passing any laws without going through parliament and also put anyone behind the bars.
“How does suspending parliament and arming Muhyiddin with emergency powers, help in winning the battle against Covid-19?”, questioned Guan Eng.
In terms of the government procurement contracts, he stated that it can be signed through negotiated tenders without open tenders and this type of tenders has been cited as the main cause of corruption and abuse of power, citing Transparency International.
Small Medium Enterprises
Further, in the press statement, “With the parliament silenced, how can people grievances, especially for the Small Medium Enterprises affected by the lockdown be addressed.
I have received many complaints of the difficulty of businesses getting approval to operate during the lockdown period because they were not considered essential services”.
He compared and questioned the logic between the construction sector being addressed as an essential service despite, the high number of cases among the workers and other non-essential businesses with little or no Covid-19 cases not allowed to operate, just because it does not consider as an essential service.
“Since the government refuses to offer any financial help or a new economic stimulus package, small businesses are already suffering and should not be prohibited from operating, if they have very few Covid cases”, he added.
Guan Eng stated the government are responsible for forcing more business closures and job losses.
3 days ago on Jan 12, Yang di-Pertuan Agong have declared emergency till Aug 1 to control the spread of Covid-19 following a sharp surge in the daily cases.- The Capital Post