The admission  by the Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah that top Ministry officials were in the dark about Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali’s violation of home quarantine rules until last week is quite a shocker.

At yesterday’s press conference, Noor Hisham admitted that he, along with the ministry’s deputy director-general and head of infectious diseases, were not informed about the matter until it made the news.

He said he instructed an internal investigation to be held and he has received the full report of what happened from the ground.

Khairuddin has established quite a number of new political records – including having close to 50,000 people signing an online petition asking him to resign as Minister.

When Khairuddin’s violation of the Covid-19 quarantine SOP was revealed by Teresa Kok in Parliament, it caused a national furor of anger and outrage.

Khairuddin then proceed to spread misinformation about the trip, such as:

1) Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had approved Khairuddin’s trip

2) There was a “special test” for Ministers and VVIPs so that they could leave and return to the country

3) Turkey was at the time as “green country (zone)” when in fact it was one of the epicentres of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

As a result, an online petition was started calling on Khairuddin to resign as a Cabinet Minister.

Khairuddin completely misread the public mood and sentiment when he expressed his apology and his “donation” of his salary as a Minister from May to August to the Covid19 Fund  – as if money is the answer to what is morally right and wrong, together with the growing abomination of double standards in Malaysian public life.

The Prime Minister’s statement one week after the Khairuddin charade and the government’s other anodyne responses are just not adequate enough to satisfy the larger Malaysian population.

What has Muhyiddin and the government to hide over the public disclosure of the Health Ministry’s internal investigation on Khairuddin’s violation of the Covid 19 quarantine SOP?

I call on Muhyiddin to instantly make public the report of the Health Ministry internal investigation on Khairuddin’s violation of the Covid 19 quarantine SOP and let the axe  fall where it may.

LIM KIT SIANG