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PETALING JAYA (THE STAR / ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – If this isn’t confusing, I don’t know what is. I woke up to see a message from the National Safety Council (NSC) saying that all red zone workers who need to travel to work should get swab tests.
The text, which I received at 1.30 am, said that workers would also need to receive letters from their employers to facilitate their trip to the office.
The confusion is not over. It seems like a classic case of the government’s left and right hand without knowing what the other was doing.
I believe that many Malaysians share my feelings, and I daresay that they also include family and friends of our ministers, if not the ministers themselves.
On Tuesday (October 20), we were told that the government directive on work from home (WFH) was not a suggestion or proposal, but an order.
Chief Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said a firm decision was made to limit the movement of people to contain the spread of Covid-19.
He said workers who had to work from offices or fields and from areas declared as red zones had to undergo swab tests.
The directive was supposed to go into effect on Thursday (October 22). This sparked a frenzy when employers scrambled to find out how they could get their workers tested in just 48 hours, and in many cases this involved hundreds, if not thousands, of employees.
And no one was clear about which sectors would be involved or whether essential services would be exempted.
I found that many hospitals weren’t interested in this as they had their patients in charge of pre-surgery cases, so private clinics and laboratories were the practical option. But by then the cost had skyrocketed to more than RM340 (S $ 111) for each swab test, from a previous RM260.
Only later did they tell us that the Social Security Organization (of the pension fund) (Socso) would pay their taxpayers’ bill.
Swab tests
But the results of the swab test are only good for three days, while a negative result does not mean that the person is free of Covid-19 forever.
In less than 24 hours, the government turned 180 degrees and said the WFH directive would now only apply to government officials at the managerial and supervisory level who do not need to be in office, and to industries registered in the framework of International Industry and Trade. Ministry.
Only foreign construction workers and security guards are required to undergo hyssop tests, while those working on-site in red zones were simply “encouraged” to do so.
No one can explain whether this directive is directed at workers who work in red zones or who live in red zones, or if it is now optional.
Next, we were told that management and oversight personnel should be authorized to the WFH and only in their workplaces for four hours from 10 a.m. M. At 2 p. M. For three days a week. But employers do not need to submit applications for this.
Seriously, this is a joke and it appears that this policy was developed without any input from the private sector.
It is almost certain that this proposal will be ignored or ignored, or people will just do it anyway.
And why is this applicable only to those at the managerial or supervisory level? It smells of discrimination or little understanding of the role of supervisors, as some must be practical and not just walk with their hands behind their backs.
There are also many companies whose staff is almost entirely at the managerial level, or so small that one wonders how such a proposal can be carried out.
Then there is the logic of spending only four hours on the site.
It’s no wonder that Malaysian cynics on social media are investigating the suggestion that one can spend as much time as they want at night markets, shopping malls, restaurants, and even the gym, but there is a time restriction for working in offices. or in sites. .
If the motion control order (MCO) was carried out efficiently in March, it was simply because it was easy. We all had to stay home and could only buy essential items. Barricades were set up and travel between states was prohibited.
No optional nonsense.
Interdistrict travel
Now the number of Covid-19 infections is higher than in March, however, the government is reluctant to use a heavy hand because everyone fears that if a strict MCO were applied, it would be disastrous for the economy, or even sound its sentence. of death.
Most of us would prefer that any form of lockdown be limited to the affected locations.
But we are making what seem like half decisions that, sadly, run the risk of becoming half decisions.
Even the police had to apologize, saying that no barricades had been put up to restrict travel inside Petaling Jaya when the fake images went viral.
The interdistrict travel ban in Selangor is not seriously enforced either, let’s be honest. As long as there are no visible police barricades, we can be sure that many of us will not comply.
In any case, in some cases, it doesn’t make sense. I live and work in Petaling Jaya, but Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur, are across the street.
So am I breaking the law if I travel to KL, or for that matter, from my office in Section 16, Selangor to the Bangsar Mall, KL, which is just down the road?
After all, ordinary people like us fear breaking the law and being fined 1,000 RM ($ 326), as we are not big shots. (We will get to that later).
For many workers in Selangor, it is almost impossible to impose the no travel restriction between districts because most of us live in multiple districts and all of the most populated residential areas of the state are now red zones.
Selfish politicians
Malaysians are furious and rightly so. We have had enough selfish politicians who are only interested in fulfilling their ambitions; we’ve had four water outages in a month and now we have to listen to leaders who can’t even act together.
If that’s not enough, what message are we sending when the Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities, Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali, gets off the hook for disobeying the mandatory quarantine rule for technical reasons that he was not issued the 14B form to self-quarantine?
The Ministry of Health, in short, did not do his job because he was a VIP or forgot to ask him to fill one out. He did not bother to order one and we must believe that Datuk Khairuddin did not know that he had to self-quarantine, a regulation imposed by the government of which he is a part.
Unbelievably, this “innocent” politician was fined RM 1,000 for violating the Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control Act of 1998 (Law 342) on August 7 and also said that he would renounce his salary from May to August. He also apologized to all Malaysians.
This will be a long road as the pandemic will not go away so soon.
It will make a difference if our leaders only focus their attention on their responsibility to serve the people, instead of watching their backs or their seats.
Right now, most Malaysians are only seeing red.
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