MUKAH: The ongoing movement control order (MCO) is not ‘main-main’ (a joke) and those who had been charged in court for flouting it are proof that the government is serious in its efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said it was clear that the MCO aimed to help break the chain of Covid-19 infection from spreading further.
She revealed that overall there was a 95 percent compliance of the MCO in this division since it was enforced on March 18.
“I thank and congratulate the police and other related parties as well as the public for helping to enforce the order,” she told the press after chairing the Mukah Division Disaster Committee meeting on Covid-19 and MCO here yesterday.
Nevertheless, Fatimah said the police had arrested nine individuals who flouted the MCO, and all had been charged in court.
She said seven of them were arrested on March 25, two on March 27 in Daro, and all of them had pleaded guilty in court and punished with two months jail term.
The Dalat assemblywoman hoped that there would be no more people moving around simply and not adhering to MCO, except with valid reasons.
To a question, Fatimah said journalists were frontliners too as their jobs are an essential service.
She added that they are also entitled to receive food contributions and advised them to liase with the Welfare Department on the matter.
On travel passes, she revealed that the Resident Office had been empowered to issue them if journalists needed them for work.
