KUALA LUMPUR, April 8, 2020: The Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) has urged the Federal government to maintain a close cooperation with the State governments of Sabah and Sarawak, during the Covid-19 pandemic and Movement Control Order (MCO) period.
Its president Tan Sri T.C Goh said this is important towards ensuring sufficient and uninterrupted supplies of essential items, including the much-needed reagents for Covid-19 tests, for the two states.
He said, such a concern was a valid one, in view of the fact that Sabah and Sarawak are currently facing logistics problem, after airlines temporarily suspended their operations, while the sea cargo had to first go through the Port Klang which was unfortunately experiencing congestion currently.
“This has inevitably further impacted on the arrival time of the sea cargo in the two states,”said Goh who is also the president for The Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS) in a statement issued on Wednesday.
He continued that the ongoing logistics problem has validated the grave concern and requests of the State governments of Sabah and Sarawak to the Federal government all these while, to allow for the import of essential goods like food and medical supplies directly from the sources.
He thus hoped that the Federal government could take this matter into serious consideration and to come out with a ‘win-win’ solution, in the best interest of the people of Sabah and Sarawak.
Meanwhile, he also expressed concern over the director-general of Health, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah’s revelation that existing supply of reagents for Covid-19 tests can only last for another week, and that the Health Ministry has started to source for more reagents from other places including Singapore.
Goh noted that currently Sabah and Sarawak too are facing acute shortage of reagents to conduct tests on the public, especially those Patients Under Investigation (PUIs), which is crucial towards containing the spread of Covid-19.
He thus welcomed the recent announcement by the State government that the State Health Ministry has promptly informed its federal counterpart of the acute shortage of reagents in Sabah, and hoped that it would get the supply of reagents soon, so that it could conduct the necessary tests on those individuals who recently returned from attending a religious gathering in West Sulawesi, in Indonesia, and to quarantine them accordingly.
While he fully supported State government’s move of requiring these religious attendees to undergo quarantine and Covid-19 test, Goh also hoped that the relevant authorities could continue to stay vigilant against the remaining attendees who may attempt to sneak back into the state through the ‘rat lanes’ which may pose serious risk of a potential cluster transmission of Covid-19, if they succeeded.-pr/BNN
