Bernama file photo
KUCHING (May 29): The Sarawak government should have a thorough discussion with the federal government and come up with a set of clear, certain and effective Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the state, said Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen.
He pointed out that in the past week, the federal government had made multiple statements in regards to Movement Control Order (MCO) being implemented in Malaysia, the SOPs for the MCO implemented and now the total lockdown from June 1 to June 14 that the Prime Minister’s Office announced yesterday.
At the same time, the state government had also made several statements in regards to Sarawak continuing with Conditional MCO with tightened SOPs, the SOP guidelines, the MCO implementation in the state along with the SOPs for said MCO.
“All these changes of SOPs were made within a short period of one week, leaving the people and the business sector breathless in trying to cope and comply with the changes in the SOPs and policies.
“What is more frustrating to the people and business sector in Sarawak is that despite the different names used by the Sarawak government, the SOPs implemented are, in essence, very similar to the ones imposed by the federal government,” he said in a statement today.
He also stressed that state ministers should stop making confusing statements on the SOPs and MCO, citing a Facebook post by Local Government and Housing Minister Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian which stated: “Sarawak will go straight to MCO 1.0 (instead of small step up from CMCO to MCO 3.0) from 29 May, 2021” as an example.
Chong pointed out that at the same time, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah announced that Sarawak would not go into full lockdown like that of MCO 1.0.
“For a matter as important as this, there ought to be an official announcement by SDMC (the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee) instead of Facebook posts by one minister contradicting the announcement of another minister,” he lamented.
Chong said that there was more confusion on the matter, especially for those in the business sector, after SDMC announced Sarawak would go into MCO from May 29 to June 11 only for the Prime Minister’s Office to announce later there would be a full nationwide lockdown from June 1 to June 14.
“So is it lockdown up to June 11 or June 14 for Sarawak? This is not the first time that the state and federal governments have conflicting policies and SOPs despite being in the same government coalition,” he said.
As such, Chong said that it was time for the state government to put its political agenda aside and thoroughly discuss a set of clear, certain and effective SOPs with the federal government and to understand that this was not the time for them to play with the ‘cheap publicity’ of autonomy.
“Autonomy is meant for the state to make better decisions for the good of the people, not to create more confusion in times of an emergency. Amidst all these confusion, we are witnessing rising Covid-19 cases in Sarawak, which makes Sarawak one of the worst-hit states with increasing high new infection cases for the past weeks.
“Fellow Sarawakians are dying from Covid-19, patients in the intensive care unit are suffering from Covid-19, front liners are risking their lives to protect us from Covid-19, and here the Sarawak government is still indulging itself with playing up the local sentiments of autonomy,” he said.