Hajiji
KOTA KINABALU: Essential services and essential goods workers in Sabah are not required to acquire the approval letter from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) for cross district travels in Sabah.
The workers would only be required to prepare a letter from their employers and an approval letter to carry out cross district travels from the Royal Malaysia Police.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Haji Noor said that this decision was issued in his media statement on June 2.
He also said in his press statement that efforts are being made to increase the registration of vaccine recipients through outreach programmes involving various agencies and government departments.
Likewise, efforts are also being made to increase the giving of vaccines.
“More public vaccine centres have begun operating in June. Private clinics have also been allowed to give the vaccine. Starting July, the vaccine will be given to factory workers, retailers, logistics and other essential services economy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the state government and local authorities have the final say in what essential services should operate in Sabah and there is no need to refer to the MITI.
He said the state government had already planned for this when it drew up the SOPs for the movement control order (MCO) period in the state from June 1 to June 14.
Masidi, who is also state Finance Minister II, said the SOPs indicated which essential services and sectors should operate during this period.
He said the state government, through the state disaster (Covid-19) management committee, was responsible for preparing these SOPs, which are specific to Sabah.
“Permission to operate for those in the essential services and sectors comes under the jurisdiction of the state government and state local authorities,” he said in a statement on Friday.
“The detailed SOPs for the agriculture and food industry, manufacturing, tourism, banking and others have already been issued by the respective ministries in the state.
“The state disaster management committee that convened on June 2 has also decided that there is no necessity to obtain approval letters from MITI for workers involved in essential services to cross districts in Sabah.
“However, these workers will still need to obtain a letter from their employers and approval from police for inter-district travel,” he said, adding he had explained this in a statement two days ago.
Masidi’s statement comes a day after Warisan deputy president Datuk Darell Leiking told the federal and state governments to decentralise MITI’s decisions and approvals concerning essential services and goods to its office in Sabah as well as the state government.
According to Leiking, who is the Penampang MP, the small and medium industries as well as manufacturers were in a quandary as they had to obtain approvals from the MITI headquarters in Kuala Lumpur to operate.
He said he could not understand why the state government had not sought the ministry’s help to decentralise all approvals to the Sabah MITI office and the Sabah government.
Masidi also said Sabah was intensifying efforts to register people in remote and rural areas for Covid-19 vaccination by carrying out outreach programmes.
He said this involved various government agencies and departments.
“More public vaccination centres have started to operate this month. Private clinics have also been allowed to administer vaccines.
“Starting July, vaccines will be given to workers in factories and those in the retail, transport and other essential economic sectors,” he said.