PETALING JAYA
: A proposal to have the federal government underwrite the cost to upkeep and protect water catchment areas has been dismissed as unsustainable.
Instead, states should work together to find a win-win solution, according to an expert on water issues, and an economist.
Association of Water and Energy Research Malaysia president
S. Piarapakaran said any move by the federal government to provide financial support to a state to protect water catchment areas will prompt other states to make similar demands.
“In the end, what is going to happen to taxpayers’ money? Will it be used to pay for protecting such areas or for infrastructure development?”
PETALING JAYA: A clear-cut framework must be established first before any supertax is imposed on sectors that have benefited from the Covid-19 pandemi.
PETALING JAYA: People who live in Kuala Lumpur are better off than their counterparts in several other Southeast Asian cities. At least that is what a.
SUNPIX
PETALING JAYA: The people’s health should take precedence over the economic well-being of the country in the Covid-19 war, but there are ways to moderate the pain, according to two economists
theSun spoke to.
Universiti Utara Malaysia professor of economics Dr K. Kuperan Viswanathan said the country can recover from economic losses, but lives cannot be replaced.
“It would be naive to put the economy before the health of the people,” he said.
Kuperan pointed out that whenever the government imposes a movement control order (MCO), the main objective is to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
“We do not want to end up like India, where (the healthcare system) has run out of nearly everything and the people are not getting the help they need,” he said.
PETALING JAYA: Taking money from the National Trust Fund to finance the vaccination rollout makes sense given the urgency of the situation, say some economists.
Others, however, said that measures such as increasing the country’s debt ceiling limit were viable alternatives to fund the inoculation programme.
Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr John Antony Xavier said enabling a speedy vaccine rollout is a “golden reason” to use money from the National Trust Fund (KWAN).
“If we do not use the money now for an urgent medical purpose to save lives, then when are we going to use it?