Dato Sim Kiang Chiok
KUCHING: Dato Sim Kiang Chiok says employers would welcome free vaccination for all legal and illegal foreign workers through the national vaccination programme.
The Sarawak Housing Estate Developers Association (Sheda) Kuching branch chairman said in a statement yesterday the government’s announcement on the vaccination for the whole population including legal and illegal foreign workers “is a good strategy to achieve herd immunity”.
On who should bear the cost of vaccination for foreign workers, Sim said the mass vaccination is more than a medical exercise and monetary consideration should not be a stumbling block in implementing it.
He added making employers pay for the vaccination would impose more hardship on small and medium companies.
He observed that these employers had already borne some cost for the Covid-19 tests before they resumed work from the initial lockdown.
He also feared that all these costs would be passed on to the end users.
“It would be better to stick to the plan as announced by the federal and state governments that vaccination is provided free for all so that we can achieve herd immunity in the shortest time possible.
“This will save cost and time for most businesses in these poor economic times,” he said.
Sim also pointed out increased operational cost would reduce profit and tax collection for the government.
“Reducing their cost will increase their profit and tax collection. So these vaccination costs can still be recovered from the tax these companies will pay eventually to the government,” he explained.
He believed that the vaccination plan announced by the federal government is giving Malaysians the way out of this pandemic and a light at the end of a long tunnel.
“Our Sarawak government has also announced they would try to achieve our herd immunity in the quickest possible time. Our federal government’s timeline is to achieve their vaccination plan by February next year while our Sarawak government is setting a target for August this year.”
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