Press Statement By Violet Yong：
I urge to the Sarawak GPS Government to give full and frank explanation as to the reasons for adopting the sudden change of plan to rely solely on the Federal Government for the supply of the vaccines to Sarawak instead of the initial plan to have own procurement of Covid-19 vaccines directly from the vaccines suppliers in order to be the first state to complete the immunisation programme by end of August.
Since February this year, our state has been initiating and applying for approval from the Federal Government to purchase its own Covid-19 vaccines for the use of the people in state. The approval was subsequently granted in April to allow Sarawak to secure own supply of vaccines through the State Covid-19 Advisory Group (SCOVAG).
“Even the Sarawak Chief Minister had announced before in May that the Prime Minister has given approval and Sarawak will purchase a total of 1 million doses of Sinovac vaccines through two phases”.
However, thing has change overnight. We have seen on one hand, the Sarawak Government claimed that the state will need to purchase own vaccines to speed up vaccination but on the other hand, the state government suddenly forgone the option to purchase the vaccines direct from source and turn back to Federal Government for the sole supply of the vaccines to Sarawak after Khairy Jamaluddin’s visit to Sarawak last week.
It cannot be denied that whatever had been said and done in past few months on direct purchase of vaccines has ended up as empty talks and such flip flop decision has angered many Sarawakians particularly, there is insufficient vaccines available for them to jab even through due registration had been done through MySejahtera many months ago.
We demand the state government to explain what has happened to the earlier purchase of the 1 million doses of Sinovac Vaccines? Are these Sinovac vaccines still be made available to Sarawakians to vaccinate? What made the Sarawak Government to agree and change its mind suddenly to let the Federal Government take over the whole supply of the vaccines to Sarawak knowing very well that it is done through at a snail pace? What is the deal that has been reached between the Federal Government and Sarawak Government for the supply of vaccines to Sarawak?
The government must bear in mind that the sooner we obtain the vaccines, the earlier we could achieve herd immunity to break the Covid 19 infection chain and thus more lives will be saved from succumbing to Covid 19.
Violet Yong
ADUN for Pending
4.6.2021
