PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Najib Razak has taken a swipe at Tengku Zafrul Aziz for defending the emergency, after the finance minister said it would help the nation’s economic recovery.
Najib said other countries which had proclaimed a state of emergency did not suspend their Parliament and that Malaysia was the only nation in the world to have done so in the name of Covid-19.
He said in jest that if suspending Parliament would truly strengthen the economy, other countries which have not done so “are missing out”.
“The emergency for other countries means the power is given to the government to implement a lockdown because they don’t have Acts like ours that allow for lockdowns without an emergency.
“Their Parliament was never suspended. Malaysia is the only country in the world to use Covid-19 as an excuse to suspend Parliament,” he said in a Facebook post.
Yesterday, Bernama quoted Tengku Zafrul as saying the proclamation of emergency would not scare investors away, citing how almost half the world had done so to battle Covid-19.-FMT