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PUTRAJAYA: Immigration will revoke its facilities for foreign spouses of Malaysian citizens who refuse to settle their bills after undergoing mandatory quarantine, says Chief Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob (Photo)
The government, he said, made it clear when it wanted to enforce the mandatory quarantine for Malaysians returning from abroad that it would pay the cost.
However, he said that foreigners, including spouses and relatives of Malaysian citizens who are permanent residents or long-term social pass holders, would have to pay the cost.
“We have been told that there are some who refuse to pay their quarantine bills. It has been decided that the Immigration Department will take the necessary steps to revoke the facilities enjoyed by foreign spouses until the outstanding bill owed to the hotels is settled, “he said.
Ismail Sabri noted that permanent resident status or long-term social pass issued to foreign spouses would not be revoked.
“Immigration will revoke the facilities granted to pass holders. For example, if before this they only needed to renew their passes once every two or three years, now they will have to do it every three or four months until they pay.
“The House of the Attorney General will also analyze the appropriate legal actions that can be taken against these people,” he said. The minister, however, did not say how many foreign spouses and families had refused to pay after being quarantined.
Since April 3, the government has imposed mandatory quarantine for Malaysians returning from abroad. To date, 33,087 returning Malaysian citizens have been quarantined. Since April, 17,26,121 people completed the 14-day quarantine process and were allowed to return home.
On another matter, Ismail Sabri said that the process of sending students from Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (Upsi) home had been temporarily halted.
This came after two of his students who had returned to Sabah were found to be Covid-19 positive, he said, adding that this decision was to allow those there to be screened.
Authorities, Ismail Sabri said, were also trying to determine how the two students became infected.
“Since the motion control order (MCO) was enforced on March 18, students trapped in their universities were not allowed to leave. We think there would be no cases between them, “he said.
Last month, the government decided to allow students to return to their families residing in green areas, and the first student movement was on April 27.
The minister also explained that flights sailing on the Sabah and Sarawak routes could fly at full capacity, as disembarking passengers would have to undergo mandatory quarantine under the directive of state governments. He said the same applied to flights from international destinations.
“For destinations within the peninsula, flights can only fly with 66.4% of passenger capacity, since it is necessary to observe social distancing.
“The same policy applies to flights from Sabah and Sarawak to the peninsula, as we do not observe a mandatory quarantine for those coming from the two states,” he said.
He was asked about reports of passengers who flew on two AirAsia flights Kuala Lumpur-Tawau and asked to be tested for Covid-19 immediately after six passengers tested positive.
The affected flights were AK5742 on May 1 and AK5740 on May 4.
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