Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah
KUCHING: Several security-related agencies would be mobilised to monitor the Covid-19 situation in Kuching under a new enforcement plan by the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC).
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said the plan would involve the the Armed Forces, People’s Volunteer Corps (Rela), Civil Defence Force (APM), State Security and Enforcement Unit (UKPN), and the Neighbourhood Watch Committees.
“The SDMC wants to review the enforcement throughout Sarawak, beginning with Kuching.
“On Monday, (Sarawak) police commissioner Datuk Aidi Ismail would present this new plan.
“Then we would mobilise Rela, APM, UKPN, the army together with the Neighbourhood Watch Committees, to enforce (the directives) and monitor the situation in Kuching,” said Uggah, who is also SDMC chairman, in the daily Covid-19 update yesterday.
On a related subject, Uggah said the SDMC had also asked police to divide Kuching into zones – similar to Sibu being divided into 31 zones – for better enforcement.
“One of our problems is enforcement. On Valentine’s night, I went around Kuching, and I thought that perhaps everybody was busy celebrating, but I didn’t see anyone.
“So we want to review the enforcement throughout the state,” he said.
Uggah pointed out that Covid-19 infection could be curbed if people fully adhered to proper physical distancing, but once people started to mix around, the virus would become ‘very fertile’.
“That’s why we appeal to the people to fully observe the SOP (standard operating procedures), but if the appeal did not work then, that’s where enforcement would come in.
“We hope that it would not be necessary as I keep saying over and over – you keep to the SOP for your own health, not because you’re afraid of being caught by police or get slapped with compounds.
“All of us want to be healthy, don’t we? So that’s how we can be healthy.
“If you’re healthy, your family would be healthy, and if your family’s healthy, the Sarawak would be healthy.
“Then we can go back to our normal lives before this Covid-19 situation struck,” he added.
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