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BINTULU, March 24 — Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing has suggested Petronas to consider setting up its own staff quarantine centre to accommodate its workers being transferred here from outside.
He said this was important to avoid the spread of Covid-19 in the event of an agent not complying strictly with the standard operating procedures (SOP) when bringing in the workers.
“Before placing workers from other cities to work in Bintulu, the agent must ensure that they have undergone Covid-19 swab-tests at their hometowns three days before arriving, and then applied for police permits (for inter-district traveling).
“I also hope the police would cooperate in this matter, including asking the applicants to show their swab-test results before issuing them the inter-district or inter-division travelling permits,” he said in a statement issued on Monday.
Tiong said his suggestion was not to make recruitment of workers complicated for Petronas, but because of necessity after the Bintulu Health Office found that some new patients who came from red zone districts had intentionally falsified their health history, claiming that they had been in Bintulu for a long time.
Tiong said such false declaration had allowed them to skip undergoing swab-tests and to wander around town with unclear health status.
He stressed the need for the oil and gas agencies to work together, and not put other people’s lives at risk just to save cost.
Tiong also urged the police to pay attention to this issue.
The MP disclosed that he received complaints about some quarantine hotels not carrying out proper sanitisation works.
He thus called upon the hotel management to supervise the sanitisation works on their premises according to the guidelines, and thoroughly clean and disinfect the rooms after the guests had checked out. — Borneo Post