Will, and how soon, the largest 2022 Budget in nation’s history, undo the ravages to the lives and livelihoods of Malaysians in the past year as one of the worst performing nations in the world in Covid-19 pandemic
The Finance Minister, Tengku Zafrul Aziz, will present the 2022 Budget, expected to be the largest budget in the nation’s history, in Parliament this afternoon.
The immediate question is: Will, and how soon, the largest 2022 Budget in nation’s history, undo the ravages to the lives and livelihoods of Malaysians in the past year as one of the worst performing nations in the world in Covid-19 pandemic?
The RM322 billion 2021 Budget, the biggest ever for Malaysia, was entitled “Resilient as One, Together We Triumph”, failed to help the country with the economic impact of Covid-19 pandemic.
When the 2021 Budget was presented by Tengku Zafrul in the Muhyiddin Government on Nov. 6, 2020, there were cumulative totals of 38,189 Covid-19 cases and 279 Covid-19 deaths. Yesterday, the cumulative totals have shot up to 2,454,719 Covid-19 cases and 28,769 Covid-19 deaths – an increase of over 64 times the Covid-19 cases and over 103 times the Covid-19 deaths between the presentation of the 2021 and 2022 Budgets!
When the Confidence-Supply-Reform (CSR) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Prime Minister Ismail Sabri and the Pakatan Harapan leaders, Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Guan Eng, Mohamad Sabu and Wilfred Madius Tangau on Sept. 13, 2021, there were cumulative totals of 1,995,7721 Covid-19 cases and 21,124 Covid-19 deaths.
This means that from the presentation of the 2021 Budget on Nov. 6, 2020 to the signing of the CSR MOU on Sept. 13, 2021, there was an increase of some 50% of the Covid-19 cases and an increase of some 75% of the Covid-19 deaths, while during the period of 45 days between the CSR MOU on Sept. 13, 2021 and the presentation of the 2022 Budget on 29th Sept. 2021, there was an increase of 1.2% in the cumulative total of Covid-19 cases and an increase of 1.4% in the increase of the cumulative total of Covid-19 deaths.
This is the initial justification for the CSR MOU – to stop the dizzying increase of cumulative totals of Covid-19 cases from five-digit to four-digit numbers and daily Covid-19 deaths from over 400 deaths daily to below 100 deaths daily.
But can we return to the pre-Emergency Day on January 11, 2021 when we had daily new cases of 2,234 Covid-19 cases and 4 daily Covid-19 deaths, or better still, return to presentation of the 2021 Budget on November 6, 2020 when we had daily new cases of 1,755 Covid-19 cases and 2 daily Covid-19 deaths, will be the test of the 2022 Budget!
Yesterday, we recorded daily 6,377 new Covid-19 cases and 95 daily Covid-19 deaths (including 24 Brought-in-Dead). Can the 2022 Budget take Malaysia to double-digit daily new Covid-19 cases and single-digit Covid-19 deaths?