By Adrian Lim
KUCHING, June 8: Michael Kong, the special assistant to Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Chong Chieng Jen, questioned the State government about the confusion over standard operating procedures (SOPs) to be followed by construction industry players.
He urges State leaders to be clear on the guidelines and repeated its call to the State government to come up with a uniform set of SOPs to be applied across the board for construction industry players.
He emphasised that the standardised SOP will facilitate implementation and the authorities will not be confused by the different versions.
Kong also urges the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government to take all steps to ensure that the SOPs are aligned before implementing large-scale enforcement.
“It is astonishing that after more than one week of implementation of the current Movement Control Order (MCO), there still seems to be confusion amongst the leaders on what industries are allowed to operate and what are the procedures in order to apply for a permit (if required).
“One of the industries would be the construction industry.
“With the constant narrative that Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) calls the shots on all the SOPs within Sarawak, a lot of the construction players abided by this SOP in their operation.
“Oddly enough, between June 1 and June 3, a few construction companies were penalised and issued compounds for operating despite having complied with SDMC’s set of SOPs.
“Instead, these companies were informed that all construction players would have to abide by the federal government’s SOPs for MCO and not that by SDMC,” he said in a statement today.
Kong noted that SDMC chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said construction players can operate while Infrastructure and Port Development Minister Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing said only selected construction companies can operate with prior approval from the International Trade and Industry Ministry.
With these differing statements, Kong called on State leaders to be clear and come out with standardised SOPs to facilitate implementation for construction industry players. — DayakDaily
