KUALA LUMPUR – The National Security Council (NSC) will ramp up the monitoring of foreign workers in construction sites and security firms amid the rising Covid-19 cases involving migrants lately.
Defense Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government had made it compulsory for the workers in the sectors to be screened for Covid-19.
This comes as a total of 460 cases were recorded in the Damanlela construction site cluster in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
He said the government was also looking to extend the requirement to other sectors that involved foreign immigrants but is awaiting proposals by the Human Resource Ministry on how this would be done.
Based on recent meetings with the Human Resource Ministry, Ismail Sabri said there are a total of 1.7 million foreign migrants in the country, of which one million are entitled to RM150 each in subsidy for screening by the Social Security Organisation (Socso) as they are contributors.
Another 700,000 of the migrants, he said, are not registered so the government needs to iron out who will pay for their Covid-19 screening – employers or workers themselves.
Additionally, the government has to look into labs in the country whether they can cope with the high number of swab tests being carried out on migrant workers alone.
He said these are among many matters involving migrants that the government is looking into.
“We can impose lockdown on hostels, but not all workers stay in hostels as some stayed in rented houses, so we have to discuss ways in which monitoring would be done,” he said during his daily briefing.
“Will they be wearing wrist bands? Even we don’t know. We have asked the Human Resources Ministry to provide detailed suggestions to ensure they (migrants) don't spread (Covid-19) as they are (in) danger,” he said, adding some migrants lived among 20 to 30 people in one house.
With the residences of workers scattered, Ismail said the government has yet to finalise how they will be monitored.
“Secondly, we want to restrict their movements. Now, some are out and about buying things, eating at restaurants and so on. In the end, this will contribute to more infections.
“So apart from doing swab tests, we are looking into how we can control their movements so they will not spread Covid-19 to other communities.” – The Vibes, November 16, 2020
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