Legislator Slams Govt for Failing to Foresee Oxygen Shortage

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - House legislator and Speaker for the Democrat Party Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, also known as Ibas, on Wednesday expressed his fear that Indonesia would be considered a failed nation for failing to save its own population against Covid-19 following the oxygen shortage. 

“For how long will our nation continue like this? We don’t want to be considered a failed nation because we are not capable of saving our own people,” Ibas wrote in a statement today.

He deemed the government is unable to handle the Covid-19 pandemic that has entered its second year. The shortage in oxygen supply, he noted, shows the government's weakness in preparing future crises. 

The son of Democrat Party founder and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia had donated 1,400 oxygen tanks to India as the country faced a significant coronavirus case surge back in May. He believes the current oxygen shortage is a bad precedent.

Ibas argued that the government, with its broad resources, should have been able to predict the Covid case surge in Indonesia and prepare to overcome the crisis.

“How can oxygen supply be donated to other countries but its own citizens are having a hard time to obtain it?” he said. “Nothing is sudden, because this pandemic has entered its second year so this should have been foreseen.”

Read: Indonesia's Covid-19 Mitigation 'Not to be Underestimated', Says Luhut

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