19 February 2020

Facemasks shortage – Open Invitation to Minister to self-review situation

An open invitation is extended to Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Dato’ Seri Saifuddin Nasution to purchase facemasks at Watsons Seremban 2 this weekend.

Last Saturday, our Bureau had given the Minister 24 hours to announce of at least one store in every state which was still selling facemasks commencing from Saturday. As a result of his failure to do so, our Bureau therefore urges Saifuddin to stop deceiving the public and apologise.

Although the government has stressed several times that there is no need to don facemasks, this does not mean that the basic need of the rakyat to purchase facemasks should be ignored simply just like that, especially for those who till today, do not have a single facemask or employees working at high-risk jobs. It is the basic responsibility of the government to ensure that its citizens may purchase facemasks in the local market as the first step towards preventing Covid-19 at this critical juncture.

Prior to this, the governments of many other countries, including China were a major exporter of facemasks. But they too have ceased exporting the said item and placed priority on its own citizens. Thus, it appears that the Malaysian government is forestalling its own citizens by permitting five local facemasks factories which despite having only limited supplies, to continue exporting their products to overseas markets solely for the sake of reaping bigger profits.

Is the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister still in snoozeland or did he wear the wrong facemask till his eyes are blinded from seeing true hardships of the rakyat?

On top of that, at a time when common folks are hard pressed due to the shortage of facemasks to protect themselves from this epidemic, Minister Saifuddin still stubbornly does not acknowledge the situation, but on the contrary, said that Taiping still has supplies of facemasks and only certain states like Johor are experiencing a shortage of stocks.

Therefore, to give Saifuddin the opportunity to prove the truth about his claims that the shortage of facemasks in Malaysia is just an illusion, our Bureau in all sincerity invites Minister Dato’ Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to join our Bureau Chief Sdr. Ng Kian Nam and the common person on the street to purchase facemasks as follows:
           
            Date:                22.02.2020 (Saturday)
            Time:               11.00 a.m.
            Venue:             Watsons, Lot G01, Ground Floor, AEON Mall Seremban 2,
                                    No112, Persiaran S2 B1, 70200 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

Considering that Watson stands among the largest pharmacy chains in Malaysia with more than 500 branches throughout the nation, our Bureau believes that this is the most appropriate indicator to determine whether the country has sufficient inventories of facemasks.

In the spirit of democracy, our Bureau is confident that Minister Saifuddin will accept our invitation to correct his mistake and ensure that there are sufficient stocks of facemasks on the said day at the said store and all other outlets in the whole country, and even emulate Singapore’s measure of giving out facemasks to each of its citizens for free. 

Ng Kian Nam
MCA Civil Society Movement Coordination Bureau Chairman

-MCA Online-