KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 9 — The government has allowed small-scale fishing activities to resume throughout the period of the movement control order (MCO), subject to permission from the police.
Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said although the sector was allowed since the early phase of MCO implementation, individuals carrying out fishing activities on a small scale were facing constraints to move around because they did not have employers’ permission letters.
“For big companies, they can issue employers’ permission letters, but not for small scale fishing activities, such as mussels farming, fishing and so on.
“I have discussed with the Deputy Inspector-General of Police to help those involved in these small-scale fishing activities, so that they can obtain police permission, either at the nearest police station or police beat bases,” he said at a press conference on MCO here today.
Meanwhile, he said the National Security Council (NSC) special session also agreed to make it compulsory to use MySejahtera application in areas with good internet access, with immediate effect, to facilitate Covid-19 contact tracing.
However, he said flexibility is given to areas with no internet access such as villages.
The MySejahtera application was launched by the government on April 20, 2020, to assist in monitoring of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
It allows users to perform health self-assessment as well as helps the Ministry of Health (MOH) monitor users’ health condition and take immediate actions in providing the required treatments.
MOH had previously said that the personal information of users collected through the application is protected by the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 and the data of check-ins collected will be archived for 30 days and will be erased after 90 days.
Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri refuted the viral standard operating procedures (SOP) purportedly issued by the NSC allowing the operators of pubs and night clubs to operate from 6am to 10pm, saying that night club, pub, entertainment and karaoke centre activities remained disallowed.
On the proposed increase of compound fine for those violating the MCO SOP, the minister said the Attorney-General’s Chambers was in the midst of completing the draft of the ordinance pertaining to heavier penalties for violation of Covid-19 SOP.
The minister said the police have arrested 745 individuals for flouting the SOP yesterday, 701 of whom were compounded and 41 others were remanded.
He said three illegal immigrants were also detained and six vehicles were seized in the Op Benteng carried out nationwide.
— Bernama
