KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has revealed its largest budget in history to help its reeling economy weather the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $78 billion budget for 2021 is up 2.5 percent from 2020, and adds an additional $4.8 billion to the country’s COVID-19 response funding, raising it to $15.7 billion, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said as he presented the budget, the first by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s eight-month-old government.
“The main purpose is to fund additional assistance for people’s wellbeing, the needs of our frontliners and the expected procurement of vaccine,” Zafrul said in his parliament address.
To mitigate the impact of the pandemic, $9.2 billion from the fund will be disbursed this year. For next year, $4.1 billion has been earmarked to support small- and medium-sized enterprises as well as small-scale infrastructure projects and wage-subsidy programs.
At least $242 million will be spent on coronavirus testing and protective gear, while an estimated $726 million will be spent on vaccine procurement.
“The year 2020 is a tumultuous period for Malaysia, marked by many challenging circumstances. Never before in modern history has an epidemic wrought such profound changes,” Zafrul said. “I hope the members of this august house will collectively approve this proposal.” Parliamentarians are due to vote on the budget within a few weeks.
Despite the injection of funds promised in the new budget, health experts argue Malaysia may have insufficient manpower to contain the pandemic.
“The issue might not be with the finance, but with the human resources required for active tracing, COVID-19 screening and medical care,” Dr. Lim Chee Han, a senior researcher at Third World Network, told Arab News.
He said the government backs a policy of herd immunity if a successful vaccine is found and approved.
“Malaysia would need to immunize about 23 million of its population and this would amount to 46 million doses of vaccine, as most vaccine candidates require two doses,” he said.
According to Malaysian Public Health Physicians’ Association president Dr. Zainal Ariffin, the amount allocated for immunization “is to cover the procurement of two doses for about 10 percent of the population.” The immunization process, he explained, would be done in stages.
Zainal said that while a large amount has been allocated to curb the spread of the virus, success in doing so would depend on the government’s ability to control Malaysia’s ‘third wave’ of infection, which began in early October.
With the number of daily cases rising rapidly since then —1,755 new cases were reported on Friday, bringing the total to 38,189 — Muhyiddin is expected to have sufficient support to pass the budget. Failure to do so may force him to resign or dissolve the parliament.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim claims to have majority support in parliament but needs the Malaysian king’s approval to form a new government, something that, despite reported attempts, he still has not received.