TEBEDU: Sarawak is prepared to beef up manpower at the Tebedu Immigration, Customs, Quarantine and Security (ICQS) for a seamless system to ensure smooth entry and exit at the border.
Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said this may be done due to the expected influx of visitors from Indonesia when its borders are fully open this Friday (Apr 15).
“As you all know, we have opened our borders since Apr 1, however, the Indonesian border has not been fully open so we are waiting for them on this.
“Sarawak, on the other hand, has opened our borders and readied our facilities to ensure all visitors from Indonesia comply with our set standard operating procedure (SOP).
“We don’t want people to come and wait for a few hours because of our inefficiency and so on. If we need to add (more people), we will,” he told reporters after visiting Tebedu ICQS, here today.
He said in a few weeks since the state’s borders were opened until Apr 13, a total of 463 arrivals and 1,074 departures were recorded at Tebedu ICQS, with the numbers expected to increase to over 400 visitors daily with the full opening of Indonesia’s borders.
“I was informed that the process has been going smoothly. It seems that all involved agencies and testing facilities provided by the private sector have been working very efficiently and we hope this will continue to be as smooth as possible.
“However, we must be prepared to face the full opening of the Indonesian borders as we are expecting a much bigger crowd then,” he said, adding that the ICQS will be operating between 9am and 3pm daily.
On another note, Uggah, who is also the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman, said operations at Kuching International Airport have been proceeding smoothly in receiving visitors from Singapore.
He said only one case of COVID-19 was detected among all the visitors so far.
“We have improved our system at the airport, initially there were hiccups, now it seems to be moving well and very smoothly and I hope it’s the same case in Miri.
Uggah also advised the people to continue being vigilant and not let their guard down against COVID-19 despite relaxed SOPs.
