After being made immunisation minister, DAP’s Chin Tong calls for Khairy to helm MoH instead of Adham Baba

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 — DAP senator Liew Chin Tong has called on Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to sack Datuk Adham Baba over mounting criticism that the health minister has failed to show effective leadership in the face of a ravaging pandemic.

Liew had last week suggested that Prime Minister’s Health Advisor Tan Sri Jemilah Mahmood be made the replacement. Today, he named Umno leader Khairy Jamaluddin as the second best candidate for the post if the options are limited to those within the Malay party.

Khairy was just recently made director of the national Covid-19 immunisation programme. 

Liew said giving the Rembau MP the portfolio without the full backing of the Ministry of Health (MoH) bureaucracy is “setting Khairy up for failure”.

“If it has to be an Umno politician to avoid political problems, at least Khairy appears to be so much more competent than Adham Baba,” the DAP senator wrote on his Facebook page this morning.

“I would personally urge the Prime Minister to appoint Khairy as Health Minister, as giving Khairy the portfolio of immunisation without the full backing of the MoH bureaucracy is setting Khairy up for failure,” he said.

Khairy has led efforts to procure Covid-19 vaccines as the Muhyiddin administration pushes for swift immunisation of the country’s 33 million population. 

Muhyiddin said in a special address broadcasted on television yesterday that the first phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Program will be rolled out starting March and will continue until April, and will involve 500,000 health frontline workers.

The second phase will involve 9.4 million vaccine recipients from high-risk groups and will take place from April to August 2021. Healthy adults aged 18 and above can only be expected to be inoculated in the ensuing third phase.

The government said it targets 80 per cent of the population to be vaccinated by the first quarter of 2022.

Liew congratulated Khairy on his appointment and wished the Umno leader success in leading the vaccination campaign.

“Malaysians do not want the Covid-19 immunisation program to fail as it is about our lives.

“We want Khairy to succeed and we want Malaysia to win the war against Covid-19,” he wrote.