Why Are We at the Bottom of Recovery Index?

 

Lockdowns, lack of mass testing, poor compliance with rules, and the slow rate of vaccinations are viewed by economists as the cause of Malaysia being ranked last among countries making a recovery to normal life.

Constant politicking and the lack of coordination are other reasons that has thrown the government off track in the battle against Covid-19.

The ranking was published last week by the Economist weekly. Malaysia finished at the bottom of a list of 50 countries ranked by their progress towards a return to normal life. The Economist “normalcy index” measured the level of activities in travel, leisure time and commercial activity.

Firdausi and Juita Mohamad of think tank Institute of Strategic and International Studies (Isis) agreed that lockdowns had been detrimental to the country’s economy and affected the livelihood of the people. Firdausi believes the main problem is the absence of mass testing. Other factors were non-compliance with SOPs across the board, be it politicians, policymakers or the common man, and the “very slow” vaccination rate, which he said inadvertently led to more new cases.

Constant politicking and the lack of coordination contributed to the rising number of cases which then reinforced the government’s need to impose the various movement restrictions.

Lockdowns – a “necessary evil” at a particular time – should have been treated by Putrajaya as a temporary measure. The current level of daily infections has proven that lockdowns are ineffective.

The strict and relatively early lockdown last year (2020) for around two months had been effective as it led to a decrease in cases and subsequently saw movement restrictions lifted. The current one, which sees selected sectors allowed to operate has seen workplace clusters mushroom. And this could mean a prolonged FMCO.

Economist Madeline Berma, an honorary professor at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), said the lockdown had prevented a return to normal life. Madeline, who previously warned of severe economic setbacks if lockdowns were to last more than two weeks, said the Economist index did not indicate the effectiveness of measures implemented against the virus. She said other Asean countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines had scored a higher ranking although they had more Covid cases and deaths than Malaysia.

Source: https://www.centralbanking.com

The ranking does not bode well for investors, businessmen, employees – they see our efforts prolonging the agony rather than curing the disease.

We need a proper plan, coordination, decentralisation to state/district levels, mass testing, vaccination (with mobile units), engagement with chambers of commerce, business associations and experts in disease control.

Where is MITI in all of this?

For a SME like mine, MITI’s response to my application to operate was “Permohonan Diterima”. No further development for the last 30 days. The saving grace is the Securities Commission has granted us approval to operate in a MCO area. So, we do operate partially with majority on WFH. But others don’t have approvals or receive rejections (from MITI) and end-up closing their businesses temporarily or permanently.

No wonder we are at the bottom!

 

Reference:

Four reasons for Malaysia finishing at bottom of recovery index, Sean Augustin, FreeMalaysiaToday, July 6, 2021