SIBU, Aug 25: Sibu Coffeeshop and Restaurant Owners Association wants the government, which is mulling making check-ins at various premises for contract tracing purposes via the MySejahtera mobile app compulsory, to exercise more flexibility over the app’s use.
Its chairman Tong Ing Kok said the government should give the public a choice whether to use manual registration or MySejahtera instead of making the latter mandatory.
Acknowledging that MySejahtera is more convenient and speedier for customers to do their registration, he nevertheless opined the use of manual registration should be maintained.
“This is similar to e-payment. Not everybody prefers to use e-payment through the use of apps as there are still those who prefer to use money to pay,” Tong pointed out.
Making the use of MySejahtera mandatory will affect the business of eating outlets if customers, especially senior citizens, could not use it.
He said senior citizens should be allowed to continue recording their particulars manually in log books provided by eating outlets.
“Most senior citizens do not own a smartphone. So how can they use the MySejahtera app to record their particulars?” he questioned.
As for senior citizen customers who own smartphones, Tong said they also do not know how to operate the said phones as they have problems reading the small text on the screen, and thus manual registration suits them better.
“There is no logic in making the MySejahtera app compulsory. Literally speaking, if it is compulsory, senior citizens do not have to eat anymore,” he said.
As for the use of MySejahtera, Tong acknowledged it helps to reduce long queues compared to manual registration.
“Long queues happen especially when there are some people who take more of their time writing down their particulars in the log book. But with MySejahtera, one only needs to click once (on the app) to check-in,” he said.
Tong noted that using the app, the customer’s full name is automatically logged in whereas when using manual registration, some customers will only either write their name in short form or one word only.
“That is why I recommend that the government should give options — manual registration for senior citizens and the app for those who own and know how to operate a smartphone,” he said. — DayakDaily
