Kit Siang calls for 2-day parliament meeting to approve RM250 bil stimulus package

(FMT) – DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has called for a two-day emergency meeting of Parliament to approve the government’s RM250 billion economic stimulus package and debate the “earliest possible re-start of the Malaysian economic engine”.

The Iskandar Puteri MP noted that in his live telecast announcing the package yesterday, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had said “this government cares for you” although it was not the government Malaysians had voted for in the 14th general election two years ago.

“For this reason, it is important and imperative that Muhyiddin should be reminded that Malaysia is still a parliamentary democracy and that he should convene a two-day emergency meeting of Parliament to approve his economic stimulus package so that it would have credibility and legitimacy,” he said in a statement today.

He said there should be no other business during the emergency meeting, whether it be a question-and-answer session, a “no confidence” motion against the prime minister, election of a new speaker or any other business, except for a debate to approve the stimulus package.

“The debate will also allow Members of Parliament to convey the views of the people with regard to the invisible war against the Covid-19 virus and the triple whammy of public health, economic and information crisis in Malaysia as a result of the outbreak,” he said.

Lim also said the government was using information “far behind time” when the Prime Minister’s Office released a 24-page infographics on the “Pakej Rangsangan Ekonomi Prihatin Rakyat 2020”.

“The infographics showed that globally, the Covid-19 pandemic had reported 434,000 cases and about 20,000 deaths, when at the time that Muhyiddin was delivering his live telecast, the number of Covid-19 cases globally had passed the half-million mark and had reached 536,639 cases with 24,117 deaths.

“The use of the projections by a study at Imperial College London that if the Covid-19 pandemic is left unchecked, there could be 2.2 million deaths in the United States and 510,000 deaths in the United Kingdom is most irresponsible and alarmist.

“All this, as well as ideas for a more effective public health strategy to contain the Covid-19 outbreak in Malaysia and the earliest possible re-start of the Malaysian economic engine, should be the subject of debate of an emergency meeting of Parliament, which should be held within a week or two,” he added.