Press Statement By Chong Chien Jen:
The GPS Government is doing a great disservice to the people of Sarawak by flip-flopping on the EnterSarawak policy.
On 16.10.2021, it was announced that all fully vaccinated Malaysians are allowed to enter Sarawak without having to apply through the SDMC website. Then suddenly, at 11:30 p.m. the same night, the SDMC amended that policy by qualifying that only Sarawakians and those West Malaysian civil servant serving in Sarawak or employees of private sectors serving in Sarawak are allowed to enter Sarawak without having to apply through the SDMC website.
It is as if the Covid-19 virus will differentiate between Sarawakian and non-Sarawakians before infecting a person.
Such differential treatment is absolutely not based on science and medical data but based on sheer political sentiment, the GPS trying to portray a “Sarawak First” policy without any basis in science and medical reasoning and by doing so, the GPS Government is confusing everyone and making lives difficult for all.
So far, despite all the extra “EnterSarawak” application SOP and the quarantine imposed on those who returning or coming from West Malaysia to Sarawak (the strictest state in Malaysia), yet Sarawak still has the highest infection cases in the country for the last 2 months.
It only goes to show that the whole “EnterSarawak” and quarantine SOP of the Sarawak Government is only a farce which is not effective in containing the spread of Covid-19, but putting extra strain and pressure on our economy.
The only reason that the infection cases is dropping in the last one week is because the authorities in Sarawak and the Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia have since last month refused to test all those “close contacts without symptoms”.
The Sarawak Government is now adopting the “less testing, less infection” strategy to tackle the pandemic. This is definitely a self-deceiving strategy putting everyone’s lives at risk. It seems that the main reason for such a self-deceiving strategy is merely to justify calling for the State elections before the 18-year-old voters will be eligible to cast their votes after December, 2021.
On the other hand, now that the country is moving from pandemic to endemic on Covid-19, and the National Recovery Counsel has decided to gradually open up the boarders to save our country’s economy, it is incomprehensible that the Sarawak government has gone the other way by imposing extra control for entry into Sarawak for non-Sarawakian Malaysian.
What the Sarawak government is doing will prolong the suffering of our tourism sector and all associated trades and the general economy in the State. Such steps is a great disservice to our general effort to try to recover the economy.
It is time that GPS Government stop playing politics with the management of the Covid-19 pandemic and get serious with helping Sarawakians to recover our state’s economy. Enough damage has been done by the SDMC and the GPS’s ineffectiveness in the management of the pandemic in the past few months.
I therefore, call upon the State Government to make decision based on science and medical data, not based on impulses and political consideration.
19.10.2021
Chong Cheing Jen
DAP Sarawak Chairman
