KUCHING: Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing has proposed to the Bintulu Division Disaster Management Committee (BDDMC) to make it compulsory for foreign workers to have letters from their employers in order for clinics or hospitals to verify their status before taking a RT-PCR test.
The Bintulu MP said this would make sure that employers have accounted for their workers’ condition and immigration status.
“Such letters would allow authorities to track and trace the foreign workers more easily.
“These steps are urgently needed because over the past few weeks, the confirmed cases among foreign workers have been consistent, making the pandemic prevention efforts in Bintulu more difficult,” he said in a Facebook post on Monday (Aug 23).
He stressed that it was important to protect the health and safety of Bintulu folk due to the current influx of foreign workers that had caused a sharp rise in cases.
Law enforcement agencies, he said, must take strict action to apprehend irresponsible middlemen, agents and employers who selfishly exploit loopholes.
“Employers have continued to import foreign labour illegally without a thought for the consequences of their actions, and have been perfectly willing to look the other way if their workers bring in the virus.
“Worse still if their infected workers disappear and these irresponsible employers shirk all follow-up actions and simply let the government fix the problem.”
He said employers had ignored the importance of preventing the pandemic for their own self-interest, to the extent of working with Indonesian and local middlemen to smuggle in foreign workers through jalan tikus (illegal border routes).
“Some of these workers were even found to be infected but that conveniently became the frontliners’ problem.
“Unfortunately, this mentality continues and more and more illegal foreigners continue to come in and hamper the pandemic prevention efforts.”
To make matters worse, he said, infected foreign workers refused to cooperate with the Health Department.
“This makes it incredibly difficult for the authorities to find their close contacts to carry out the necessary quarantining and testing work.”
Tiong said such action would inevitably cause the virus to spread even more widely, and was totally unfair to people who have complied with Covid-19 prevention standard operating procedures.
