Wee speaking during his Facebook live session today.
KUCHING (March 20): Enforcement policies must be thoroughly studied beforehand to avoid confusion and dissatisfaction rising among the public once they are implemented, said Kuching South City Council (MBKS) mayor Dato Wee Hong Seng.
Referring to the latest fine structure for violations of standard operating procedures (SOPs) under the Emergency Ordinance, Wee said the government must consider how best to enforce a regulation effectively with the support from the public to safeguard their interests.
“Any new enforcement policies or regulations must be properly studied by taking into account the possible public reactions to the implementation in order to achieve maximum impact,” said Wee during his weekly Facebook live session today.
He said the drafting of enforcement policies must take place with the people’s welfare taking precedence and all elements of politicking must be rejected.
“Once they have been properly studied, only then such enforcement policies should be made known to the public. Otherwise, it would raise many questions and concerns among the people, especially at a time when most of the public are already facing hardship during this Movement Control Order (MCO) period.”
The federal government had recently announced a new guideline to the fines system, with violations of SOPs being classified into three categories depending on the severity of the offences.
Under the new guideline, violations including first time offenders caught not wearing face masks, entering a premise without checking in via the MySejahtera app or failure to observe social distancing will be fined RM1,500 instead.
The latest changes came after a huge public outcry was mounted when the government initially hiked the fine from RM1,000 to a maximum of RM10,000 for violations of SOPs, which the public could then appeal to lower the fine.
Meanwhile, Wee said the decision on whether or not to hold the Hari Raya Bazaar this year will be made at the end of the month or early next month with the Covid-19 situation in the state being closely monitored.
“As for the annual Kuching Festival, we will make the necessary judgement after decisions regarding the Hari Raya Bazaar have been made. However, if we manage to vaccinate about 70 per cent of the state’s population by August, we could maybe hold the festival with strict SOPs in place.”
The mayor also said he will be personally leading in the organising of celebrations next year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Padungan since its founding.
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