KUCHING: Employers bringing in foreign workers to Sarawak should bear the costs of quarantine and Covid-19 testing required for their entry as such arrangement is fair.
In saying this, Federation of Kuching, Samarahan and Serian Divisions Chinese Associations president Datuk Richard Wee said employers must also have the duty and responsibility to ensure strict adherence to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by the government.
“They will have to face the consequences if the rules and regulations are breached,” he said when contacted today.
He was commenting on the state government’s decision to allow foreign workers back into Sarawak from Mar 1, subject to stringent SOPs, as announced by the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) on Wednesday.
“While we know that the current number of cases in Sarawak is still high, there is also a need to consider the impact on the economic sector,” he said.
Noting that the government was between a rock and a hard place, he said they needed to consider lives and livelihood as well as manage health and safety against trade and economy which is indeed a tough task to navigate.
Covid-19 pandemic aside, on the overall need for foreign workers by the country, Wee urged the government to review and simplify the procedure for the application of foreign workers.
“The reason being, if we are faced with a shortage of workers in the different sectors of the economy, why are we still not able to assist the private sector to solve the worker shortage problem?” he questioned.
“Of course, the monitoring, implementation, and execution of the entire process should be constantly and strictly carried out by the relevant enforcement units,” he said.
