(From left) Liu, See and Lau during the Live Facebook session.
KUCHING (April 24): Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) presidential council member See Chee How is urging the state government to speed up the purchase of vaccines and increase registration of people for the Covid-19 vaccination programme.
He said since the third phase of the vaccination programme will start next month, Sarawak needs to get more people to register and at the same time ensure there is sufficient vaccine.
“In another week, May is coming up, and we have to target even more people for the vaccination, (which is) about 1.5 million people that we are talking about. Then if we are even able to find the people for the vaccination now, how are we going to carry out the work?
“So at the end of the day, you don’t have the vaccine and you also don’t put in effort to get the registration to get these people to be vaccinated. I think we have to look at all these (issues),” he said during a PSB Southern Zone Taskforce Live Facebook session today.
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See, who is also Batu Lintang assemblyman, said public health comes under the concurrent list of the Federal Constitution which means it is a shared responsibility of the state and federal governments to carry out the job.
“It is repeatedly (reported) on this day you (state government) talk about buying vaccines, the next day you go to Putrajaya asking for more vaccines.
“Do not just ‘ding dong’ on this. Do not let people (question) ‘Are you really serious in buying the vaccine?’.
“It is just not about talking about setting up committees, task force, teams and all these, but we want to see action so that you can resolve the problem in getting the vaccine.
“You have to find solutions and execute it to get it done,” he said.
On Friday (April 23), Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas was quoted as saying the federal government has approved the Sarawak government’s request to purchase its own Covid-19 vaccines for the use of the people of the state.
Uggah, who is also the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman, said the approval was given during his meeting with Coordinating Minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin in Putrajaya recently.
Following that, Uggah said the State Covid-19 Advisory Group (SCOVAG) was given the responsibility to discuss the purchase with vaccine suppliers.
“We are now discussing the matter with the relevant authorities to sort out how we want to purchase it (the vaccines). It will be used as reserve in case there is any problem with the supply from the federal government,” he had told reporters after observing the implementation of the second phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for the Kuching division at Sarawak Indoor Stadium that day.
A total of 929,435 individuals are being targeted to receive the vaccine under the second phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme in Sarawak, which began on Monday
Local Government and Housing Minister Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian had been recently quoted as saying that Sarawak wants to speed up and complete all three phases of free vaccination for more than two million Sarawakians by August 2021 rather than national vaccination programme of February 2022.
On another matter, See commended the SDMC and Ministry of Health (MOH) for a job well done in ensuring the smooth process of the second phase of the vaccination programme, which targets those in the high-risk groups, namely those who have comorbidities and senior citizens aged 60 and above.
He nonetheless suggested that more vaccination centres should be set up instead of just having one for every division, in order to speed up the vaccination process.
A total of 13 vaccine dispensing centres (PPV) are operational statewide for this purpose under the second phase.
Also participating in the Facebook live session with See were PSB publicity secretary Liu Thian Leong and the party Southern Zone Taskforce member Datuk John Lau.
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