#kerajaangagal152: Verbal support is not good enough – Rina Harun must set up a special division to address “White Flag” problem and the rise of suicides because of Covid-19 pandemic

I welcome the prompt response of the Minister for Women, Family and Community Development Rina Harun to my media statement today calling on her to give Parliament a full report in July on what her Ministry had done to help the “White Flag” victims and the rise or suicide particularly this year - the direct results of the government’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So far, she has been conspicuously absent from these two issues although they fall directly within her Ministry.

However, Rina should know that it is just not good enough for her to express her appreciation and support for the "white flag" movement, which urges those who need financial help to display a white flag at their house.

She should realise that the “white flag” movement and the sharp increase in suicides are an indictment on her Ministry, and she rise up to the occasion to set up a special division to address these two problems which are the direct result of the government mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

She should announce the personnel who would be running this division.

She should also work closely with a parliamentary committee to address the social effects of the 18-monhth long Covid-19 pandemic and tour all parliamentary constituencies for this purpose.

This is why the Yang di Pertuan Agong and the Rulers are right that Parliament and the State Assemblies should be convened immediately.

In fact, the Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin should declare immediately that Parliament and the State Assemblies can be convened before the end the emergency on August 1, 2021 as this will enable states which have fixed State Assembly meetings in August to convene special meetings of the State Assemblies in July on the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pandemic had been wreaking its devastation on the lives of the people, the economy and society particularly in the last six months of the emergency which had not only failed to bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control, but seen Malaysia catapulting to be one of the world’s worst-performing nations in handling the pandemic.