KUCHING: Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing has appealed to companies to cooperate by voluntarily locking down and testing all their employees if they have confirmed cases.
This part of the employers’ role as corporate citizens, he pointed out. In particular, he called upon large companies, especially those in the oil and gas sector, which had several confirmed cases recently.
“Even after the Health Department had ordered certain companies to suspend operations for testing, these companies have refused to cooperate. As an MP, I cannot condone these companies’ behaviour, which goes against the greater good,” he stressed in a Facebook post today.
Locking down and testing all their employees is the companies’ basic social responsibility, rather than rejecting this order on the grounds of pricy test costs or making their employees bear the costs, Tiong emphasised.
“It is well-known that testing in public hospitals is reasonably priced and within the means of even smaller companies.
“It is disappointing and alarming to know that there are large companies in Bintulu that choose to ignore the public’s interest during this critical juncture,” he said.
He added that these large companies had chosen their bottom line over their social responsibilities.
“For the sake of the people, they need to take responsibility now and join the efforts to contain the outbreaks,” said Tiong, who is also Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) president.
At the same time, he stressed that social responsibility, not meaningless remarks, was key in stemming Covid-19 cases.
“Strenuously applying the standard operating procedures (SOPs) in Sarawak is the only sure-fire way to contain outbreaks and flatten the curve of infections.
“Instead of expressing meaningless remarks, we need to start doing more. Let’s replace words with actions to help strengthen the fight against Covid-19,” he urged.
He said it was unnecessary to make such public remarks when one’s energy could be better spent on combating the pandemic, adding that making such remarks would only deepen public anxiety and create tension on frontliners.
“All groups today — including the Bintulu Health Department, Bintulu Development Authority, Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), Civil Defence Force (APM), medical staff, and even private ports — have joined hands to fight the pandemic.
“They are all abiding by the SOPs in preventing more outbreaks and stemming Covid-19 from spreading further. Their efforts are not helped in any way by non-constructive remarks by politicians that undermine the efforts and public confidence towards these brave frontliners,” said Tiong.
He said Bintulu was not a red zone of outbreaks today due to the relevant authorities strictly enforcing SOP compliance and tracking confirmed cases for several weeks via active case detection (ACD).
He said this action, coupled with mass screenings, were able to detect many more potential cases which had been diagnosed as asymptomatic at first.
Taking the Sg Plan situation as an example, he noted some people with asymptomatic infections or mild symptoms were located in this densely-populated area, but with mass screenings, the authorities were able to detect the confirmed cases as soon as possible, thereby preventing another cluster and cutting the chain of transmissions.
He said this was a win for all in suppressing more outbreaks, adding that this was the result of disciplined surveillance and ACD operations.
“This action must be commended and emulated. The opposite result would have been asymptomatic patients lurking in the community and disastrously spreading Covid-19 farther and wider,” said Tiong.
