Challenging Opposition leaders to come and join our New Year 2021 celebrations

I have challenged our local opposition leaders are challenged to attend the New Year 2021 eve celebrations at our State Indoor Stadium in Petra Jaya which has a capacity of 5,000 and for this event but we only accommodating 1,000 guests in which is one-fifth of the capacity.  We fully understood the stipulated requirements and thus, we know what we are doing.

Life has to go on. And we believe if we do it safely by following strict SOPs, life may continue amid the threat of COVID19 pandemic and our New Year Countdown is being organised for showing appreciation to frontliners. I have told DAP not to politicise New Year Countdown and create an issue out of it including the learned YB Dr YKelvin Yii who tried to politicise it and made it look like as if we are trying to encourage the virus to spread but he must bear in mind, people need to go on.

Sarawak's COVID19 situation is different from that of Peninsular Malaysia which is still having high number of cases. We in Sarawak have managed our COVID19 situation and we are managing it quite well. Even the Ministry of Health (MoH) Director General, Tan Sri Nor Hisham Abdullah recently had also acknowledged on how well we had managed the situation.

Additionally, we also have the State Disaster Management Committee (SMDC) here and thus we decide for ourselves. Unless they (opposition) want us to have everything under Peninsular Malaysia. It seems to me that some opposition leaders always prefer to abide by directives from Kuala Lumpur only. Where as for Sarawak, we are autonomous. Even when come to things like this (holding event), we have the autonomy.

I therefore give the assurance that all entertainers, artistes as well as musicians who are performing for the event are all locals, except for Malaysia top artiste Dayang Nurfaizah who is also a Sarawakian but she needed to fly back home from Kuala Lumpur. She has been tested negative and she will only stay in Sarawak for 72 hours before she will fly back to Kuala Lumpur. There is no need to make a fuss out of it.

Our Sarawak New Year Countdown themed “Sarawak Di Ambang 2021” is being held at our State Indoor Stadium where tickets are needed for admission. It is specially organised to show appreciation to frontliners who will make up to be the attendees for the event and there is nothing wrong with that.