By Ling Hui
KUCHING, Nov 14: The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has to come up with a clear list of Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) for each industry.
This is one of the nine proposals discussed and approved during the Sarawak Federation of Chinese Associations (SFCA) annual general meeting (AGM) chaired by its president Dato Richard Wee via Zoom today.
While businesses are slowly opening up, SFCA viewed it necessary for SDMC to prepare clear sets of SOPs for every industry seeing that practices of new norms will not be ending anytime soon as Covid-19 persists.
Another proposal was to let civil servants return to their physical job positions as soon as possible.
“Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many civil servants were forced to work from home which has had a serious impact in terms of operations.
“Thus, it is important for the state government to allow all civil servants to return so that it is in line with the state’s economic recovery when other businesses are gradually opening up as well,” it read in the proposal.
Meanwhile, the Kuching Chinese General Chamber Of Commerce and Industry submitted three proposals that SFCA had collectively approved during the meeting, with the first to urge federal and state governments to have better coordination in dealing with illegal immigrants.
It was said to also urge the governments to speed up application processes for immigrants’ working passes in order to cater for the lack of manpower from foreign workers following the impact from Covid-19.
SFCA will also be urging the Sarawak government to purchase more lifting and unloading machinery at Senari port to increase efficiency, and consider the construction of a new deepwater port at another location as a long-term backup solution.
Following the Senari port congestion event due to technical issues in early 2021, many shipping companies were adversely affected and had to suffer huge consequences, SFCA pointed out.
On a related issue, shipping companies or agents will also be called on to provide transparency when charging transportation fees to protect the rights of local consumers.
“Some of the transportation fees by shipping companies or agents are repetitive and sky-high. So, SFCA will be submitting a proposal to the Ministry of International Trade or related agencies to urge for immediate solutions.”
Other proposals that SFCA will be focusing on in the coming year include a request to the Ministry of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development for more assistance to single mothers and women who are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, calling for more Chinese applicants to be engaged in civil service and the teaching profession for Chinese primary schools, and urging the government to implement enrolment of civil servants based on the proportion of race population. — DayakDaily
