Sabah sticking to MCO to protect public health

By Olivia Miwil - May 3, 2020 @ 3:42pm

Sabah government’s decision on not implementing the conditional movement control order tomorrow to protect the people, said Kota Kinabalu member of parliament Chan Fong Hin. - NSTP/AIZUDDIN SAAD

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah government's decision on not implementing the conditional movement control order tomorrow to protect the people, said Kota Kinabalu member of parliament Chan Fong Hin.

"As a Federal lawmaker myself, I have wondered whether the state government had such powers to defy the federal government.

"But I came to the conclusion that the state has an even more overarching duty to protect the public health of Sabahans," said the state DAP secretary in a statement.

He added that Sabah has been taking drastic and unpopular moves to contain the spread of Covid-19 from beginning via the ban of foreign tourists as early as January and prohibiting the operations of the palm oil sector in six districts in the state.

Sabah has now 59 active cases with four deaths. The state had recorded zero cases for three consecutive days.

"The state government would definitely be in a better position to decide what are the best counter-actions and the best time to execute them being closer to the ground compared to the federal government, far away across the South China Sea in Putrajaya.

"Under the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, public health is listed under the Concurrent List, whilst Local Government is listed under the State List.

"Therefore, Sabah state government's decision to continue with a lockdown of most business sectors could be enforced by way of local government enforcement," he said.

While Chan welcomed the reopening of most business sectors by the Federal Government, he would prefer for it to be gradual and properly planned to avoid a sudden explosion of new Covid-19 cases by the formation of new clusters.

He added that there were also many organisations and civil societies that had raised their concerns with the abrupt reopening of most economic sectors in the state.