KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 — Special Functions Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof today criticised the government in handling the vaccination process including the focus on setting up mega vaccine centres, better known as PPVs.
While noting that such facilities benefit large cities to prevent crowd congestion, Redzuan said the authorities should utilise existing facilities nationwide to expedite the vaccination among the public, Malaysiakini reported.
Redzuan, who was recently removed from National Security Council (NSC) meetings on Covid-19, questioned why the government needed to spend hundreds of million of ringgit setting up mega PPVs when they are already facing the challenge of a fiscal deficit.
“Why do we need to spend on purchasing new curtains, partitions, tables and chairs to put at these PPVs, when we can mobilise our clinics?
“Pharmaniaga has been the government’s contractor as a logistics company. They can collect all the vaccines and send them to all the outlets, then the people can just go there, bring their documents, get their jab and scan the QR code for records in MySejahtera,” he said.
Redzuan, minister in charge of the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma), also pointed out that the government is capable of speeding up the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme with its immense human resource availability.
“For example, the Civil Defence Force (CDF), an agency under Nadma, has more than 2.2 million volunteers.
“We can use the CDF. We have the infrastructure although not as big as other agencies, it would suffice to assist. We can mobilise them to help, and it won’t involve high costs,” he said.
Redzuan also revealed that he had raised these issues with the Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin both “directly and indirectly”.
The minister in charge of vaccines Khairy Jamaluddin, and Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba, are from Umno — which has been bickering publicly with Redzuan’s party Bersatu.
