I’m sure a lot of us were scrambling when the order to work from home came from Defence Minister Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s conference on 20 October. In that particular conference, he said,
“All employees in public and private sectors at management and supervisor level to not go into the office as they can and should work from home instead.”
He added that the full list of jobs will be released by MITI soon. However, ‘soon’ meant the afternoon of 21 October and with MITI’s statement, more confusion was caused.
Adding salt to the wound, the Defence Minister was late for his daily conference which was normally at 4pm but on 21 October, it was at 6pm. During that conference, the minister had the audacity to laugh at the confusion that he has caused with his conflicting reports.
In that conference, he said that the work from home order is only for those in the industrial and public sectors. Other sectors including food, grocery stores and security can continue to operate as usual.
Hannah Yeoh has taken to her social media platforms to call out the minister.
She said in a few tweets,
“I urge the Defence Minister to stop his daily conferences if it doesn’t give any substantive announcements that can help the rakyat.”
“A media conference is not the place to promote clothes or his display rack. With every announcement, the rakyat are becoming more and more confused.”
Speaking on how he laughed at the rakyat’s confusion, she said: “I have always thought that the ability to laugh at oneself is a gift. BUT not for this. The joke is him and he has caused a lot of hardship to many people.”
The last nail in the coffin,
“Ministers must have good managerial skills. When we have Ministers who have never worked in the real marketplace making decisions (coupled with yes-sir assistants), one announcement can throw the nation into chaos. If Covid doesn’t kill the economy, their incompetency will!”
With this new batch of SOPs and whether the state-wide CMCO on a couple of states will be lifted, the rakyat are in anxiety over how they will survive. What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments.