By Karen Bong
KUCHING, July 9: The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) will continue to investigate and examine if there are process flaws, management shortcomings or even officer’s negligence in the failure to prevent the recurrence of Covid-19 outbreaks in prisons or detention facilities.
Its chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, who was saddened by the recurring outbreaks in such facilities, hopes that relevant parties will be able to correct the mistakes made.
“SDMC will continue to investigate and look into where are the flaws, errors or if there is negligence on duty by officers that resulted in the recurrence of outbreaks in prisons and detention facilities.
“I am equally saddened (of the fresh outbreaks in one detention centre and two prisons reported today) as from past experiences, from Semuja (Immigration Depot) and then Sri Aman (Central Prison), we have discussed with the relevant parties (on compliance with Covid-19 guidelines).
“There are already clear and strict SOP (standard operating procedures) that must be implemented but sadly, today there are recurring outbreaks in these facilities,” he told a press conference during the daily Covid-19 situation updates for Sarawak today.
Uggah, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, emphasised that the State government has allocated funding to help set up temporary holding facilities for the detainees.
“They (enforcement agencies) have requested assistance from the State government to prepare facilities to temporarily hold detainees.
“As per their protocols, whether from police, prison, immigration, detainees need to be placed in a temporary holding facility until their test reports are cleared of Covid-19.
“But at that time, they didn’t have the temporary holding facility. So the State government has allocated funds to set up the temporary holding facilities,” he explained.
Today, three out of four new Covid-19 clusters declared involved the Batu Lintang Immigration Detention Centre in Sri Aman, the Sri Aman Central Prison and Miri Central Prison, with a total 152 cases confirmed so far.
The Benteng Sri Aman Cluster detected at Batu Lintang Immigration Centre has 39 cases while the Tembok Sri Aman Dua Cluster at the Sri Aman Central Prison has 55 cases and the Tembok Miri Cluster at Miri Central Prison has 59 cases.
Meanwhile, before the press conference, Uggah also received a donation of RM200,000 from Quality Concrete Holdings Group Berhad for the State Disaster Fund which was set up by the State government to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company, through its subsidiary company QC Works & Road Maintenance Sdn Bhd, also donated 2,500 boxes of medical masks for frontliners and healthcare workers.
Minister for Local Government and Housing Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian and State Health director Dato Dr Mohamed Sapian Mohamed were present. — DayakDaily
