Appropriate measures taken to protect lives, livehoods – PM

PUTRAJAYA: The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government will continue taking appropriate measure to achieve a balance between protecting the lives and livelihoods of the people affected by Covid-19, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.

He said Malaysia was not spared from Covid-19 as the country struggled to cope and strive the negative impact of the pandemic on the safety and wellbeing of the people, as well as the economy.

“The partial shutdown of economic activities has brought about serious impacts which caused many workers to suffer job losses due to workplace closure, traders to close shop and supply of essential goods to be affected.

“Under the caring PN government with me as the Prime Minister, we tried to do our level best to revive the economy and put our people back in the job market,” he said in his speech during a visit to the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry (KPDNHEP) Enforcement Command Centre here on Friday.

Present was KPDNHEP Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi.

Muhyiddin said the pandemic also had a huge impact on the lives of the people, including the way they work, study and do business.

“The pandemic made us realise that in order to move forward, we have to break away from normal life by introducing various effective measures to cushion the impacts of the pandemic on the people and the country's economy.

“No more business as usual. Now is the time to generate new ideas and to become more innovative,” he said.

Muhyiddin said right from the beginning, the government had taken the 6R approach namely Resolve, Resilient, Restart, Recover, Revitalise and Reform in achieving a balance between ensuring the survival of the people and economic recovery of the country.

Right now, he said Malaysia is in the Revitalise phase, which is to revitalise the country's economy.

The Prime Minister said an important aspect of the country's economic recovery was the successful implementation of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, which has now entered its second phase.

He said all plans for the country's vaccination programme were now running smoothly, to achieve the target of ensuring that at least 80 per cent of Malaysia's adult population, or the equivalent of 26.5 million individuals, received the vaccine, free of charge, by February 2022.

“This step is important to establish group protection or herd immunity. Therefore, with more and more people in Malaysia getting vaccinated, I am confident that we will finally be able to deal with this pandemic effectively,” he said.

Muhyiddin said various stimulus packages had been introduced by the government to revive the country's economy, including the Strategic Programme to Empower the People and the Economy (Pemerkasa), worth RM20 billion.

This initiative is a continuation of other economic recovery plans which have been introduced, such as the Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Package (Prihatin), National Economic Recovery Plan (Penjana), Additional Prihatin SME Economic Stimulus Package (Prihatin SME Plus), Prihatin Supplementary Initiative Package (Kita Prihatin) and Malaysian Economic and Rakyat Protection Assistance Package (Permai).

The government has also allocated RM322.5 billion as the national 2021 Budget, which is the largest in the country's history, he said.