In a televised interview yesterday, Muhyiddin said with his appointment, he now has the same powers as when he chaired the council as prime minister, with only spending requiring additional approvals.

Lim pointed out that during Muhyiddin’s 17-month tenure, there were over 1.4 million cases and nearly 13,000 deaths.

“When Malaysia celebrated the 63rd National Day on Aug 31, 2020, Malaysia was ranked 89 among nations in the world based on the total number of Covid-19 cases. But we are now ranked 21.

“If there is one person who must assume responsibility for Malaysia becoming one of the worst-performing nations in the world in the war against Covid-19 (over the past 12 months), it is none other than Muhyiddin Yassin,” the Iskandar Puteri MP said in a statement today.

“We are now told that under Muhyiddin’s premiership, there had been under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths and that there is a huge backlog of corpses in the government hospitals awaiting analysis and post-mortems.”

He called for health minister Khairy Jamaluddin to explain the situation on the alleged backlog.

“I had asked (him) to make a ministerial statement in Parliament on the true position of Covid-19 deaths and the brought-in-dead cases, but (my request) had fallen on deaf ears.

“Why is Khairy refusing to give a full disclosure about the true position of Covid-19 deaths in the country?”