KENINGAU: NGO Angkatan Perpaduan Sabah (APS) urged the Government, especially the Health Ministry (MoH), and banking institutions to come up with better arrangements for -people who have dealings or transactions at banks so to prevent congestion/crowd that may cause Covid-19 infection to spread.
APS Vice President, Paul Kadau, said MoH personnel and local authority should also do daily monitoring at all the banks, particularly during this time of the Government Covid-19 Prihatin Aid payment period, to ensure everyone complies with the set standard operating procedure (SOP).
“It is a scary scene daily at all the banks here right now, as it is too crowded with people until you cannot even see people queueing or follow the SOP anymore. So many people come and crowd the banks to get their Covid-19 Prihatin Aid cash payment from Nov 20 to Dec 19.
“Normally there would be Rela members on duty at the banks to ensure SOP compliance, but sometimes they are not there and there are times when they are there they also cannot do much about the crowd because only a few of them. If this situation continues on, there may be a continuous spike of Covid-19 cases in Keningau.
“But I think this is not just happening in Keningau, I believe everywhere in the State is also the same. MoH must monitor this situation, while the local authority enforcers as well as Rela must strictly ensure the set SOP is complied with by everyone,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
Paul said he did a check and found that the problem (congestion/crowd) is caused by the very limited service counters in the banks, which should be resolved immediately before it sparks a Covid-19 cluster of infection.
“We know the people need money but, at the same time, we also need to prevent transmission of Covid-19. Imagine if there is just one asymptomatic among those in the crowd, the whole people there with him/her at that time would be at great risk of getting infected and also spread to others,” he said.
According to a notice issued by a bank, the Covid-19 Prihatin Aid cash payment to the people in Sabah who are qualified by the Sabah State Government can be obtained from all its bank branches throughout Sabah from Nov 20 to Dec 19.
To smoothen the payment process, the people need to firstly check if they are qualified through website https://bantuan.covid19.sabah.
Recipients need to bring their identity card when going to the bank for the cash in process. They are also urged to practise physical distancing of one metre apart and wear a face mask during conducting banking transactions at any of its branches.-pr/BNN
