Miri, June 2: Any negative efforts to impede and frustrate the objectives of the Movement Control Order (MCO) are to be discouraged.
Miri City Council said in a statement today that it was “regrettable” that some quarters have taken advantage of and exploited the sufferings and frustrations of the people under the unfortunate circumstances for their own selfish objectives.
“In full support of the objective of MCO, MCC has decided together with the contractors of the Miri City Hall to stop work during the MCO period so as to lessen any chance of Covid-19 transmission despite the fact that Miri City Hall is a government project and is exempted from the MCO restrictions with conditions.
“Miri City Hall is a signature project but it can wait as public safety and health is the over-riding consideration,” said MCC mayor Adam Yii in a statement today.
He said due to the high rate of Covid-19 infections over the past few weeks, the Sarawak government via the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has declared the MCO in Sarawak from May 29 till June 11, and later further extended it to June 14.
To achieve the objective of restricting the movement people and close contact among people, MCO stipulates that all movement of people and activities (including businesses) are to be stopped barring those activities classified under essential services.
Subsequently, the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) was issued a day after the announcement of the MCO.
“This had caused considerable inconvenience among the public and other stake holders. However, the delay was due in part to the necessity of having to gazette the SOP to give them the force of law for implementation.
“It is of paramount importance that the public has to understand the objective of MCO and therefore the absolute necessity to cooperate and comply with the SOP in order for the objective of MCO to be achieved,” said Yii.
Yii was responding to those who had made unnecessary and unwarranted negative comments and remarks that would demoralise frontliners, enforcement officers and cast doubts among people on the vaccination programme, among others.
To Yii, these are all not helpful as what is needed now is for the public to stay united and fight the Covid-19 pandemic together. — DayakDaily
