MIRI – Sarawak government leaders need to devise a specific plan to help the thousands of rural farmers who still cannot sell their produce to cities and towns following the indefinite extension of the state-wide movement control order (MCO) here.
Michael Ding, the community elder for the Lakiput ethnic minority group in Sg Tutoh, central Baram district, said the latest decision to continue MCO until further notice is bleak news.
He told The Vibes that thousands of rural farmers have lost their incomes.
“The State Disaster Management Committee must tell us rural folk how they are going to provide sustainable assistance to all those farmers who still cannot transport their produce to the cities and towns to sell due to the curb on inter-district travel.
“Our only source of income has dried up. What sort of aid packages will the state government give to the independent rural farmers? We have already been suffering due to the MCO last year, the EMCO earlier this year, and the current MCO.
“There seems no end to the uncertainties and hardship for thousands of rural farmers,” he said.
Ding urged state leaders to come up with an appropriate plan to quickly provide aid for rural farmers.
The Lakiput are one of the state’s ethnic minority communities, with about 10,000 of them mostly in Baram, northern Sarawak.
Yesterday, it was announced that Sarawak will not fix its MCO to a specific timeframe, in the state’s efforts to tackle the pandemic.
The state government yesterday concluded that it will rely on the National Recovery Plan (NRP) to decide when Sarawak’s MCO will end.
“The state government will rely on the NRP and not on a specific time period for MCO as was done before.
“This state will decide on the length of MCO based on the daily rate of cases, admissions into intensive care units, and the percentage of Sarawakians who will complete the second dose of Covid-19 vaccinations,” the secretariat said.
Sarawak has been under the full MCO since June 1.
Yesterday, three new Covid-19 fatalities were reported in the state. A man aged 86 died in Sibu Hospital, while a woman aged 70 and a man aged 78 died in Kapit Hospital.
The coronavirus death toll in Sarawak yesterday was 429. Four new clusters were also recorded yesterday in the state.
The Mukah Pasar cluster saw 32 traders infected, while detention facilities in the Benteng Sri Aman, Penjara Sri Aman, and Tembok Miri clusters saw 38, 55, and 59 inmates respectively testing positive. – The Vibes, July 10, 2021
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