All taxi, e-hailing drivers to be covered by Socso

All 100,000 taxi drivers and e-hailing services drivers nationwide are targeted to be covered under Socso from next year.

Human Resources Minister M Kula Segaran, said so far only 7,000 or seven percent of all taxi drivers and e-hailing services are making contributions towards Socso through the Self-Employment Social Security Scheme

“Many are not concerned about their contributions because they do not think about their safety at the workplace and this is worrying especially if an untoward incident occurs.

He said employers who hire foreign workers must register their employees with Socso and contribute to the Employment Injury Scheme and this involved a total of 1.8 million foreign workers in this country.

Earlier, Kula Segaran presented a check for RM2,000 to Lo Kok Ping, 47, a family member of the victim of a gas explosion in Cityone Megamall, in the form of funeral benefit payment.

Lo is the former wife of O Kui Lim, 49, who was among three people killed when they were buried under the rubble in the gas explosion incident (below) on Dec 4.

O Kui Lim’s four children, aged 21 and below, will also receive regular payments to help ease their schooling expenses.

In the incident, believed to have been caused by a gas leakage at NeNe Chicken outlet, in CityOne Megmall, O Kui Lim, Tchee Kiam Jong, 24, and Chin Hsien Long, 29 from Penang were killed and 41 others were injured.

Meanwhile, CityOne Megamall reopened today fully operational following the structural safety report provided by certified structural engineering consultants.

All shops have opened for business except for 21 outlets, namely KKDC, Fullhouse, Earthlings, MetroJaya, Watsons, Hotlink, Place to Chat, Yoberry kiosk, X Core Fitness, Huawei, Oppo, Coneli, Soft Toys Shop, Ms. Poteto, A  People, The Men's Shop, Lot 10 Café, Sunmax, Antiques Shop, Mr. Right and Pezzo.

“We want to apologise to our friends, tenants, and shoppers for not opening earlier.

“’We did not want to compromise anyone’s safety and were working very closely with all the authorities to obtain the necessary green light before reopening,” said Stephen Long Tine Chung, director of Kenbest Sdn Bhd, the developer of CityOne Megamall.

As of today, he said, 22 victims have been discharged while three out of the four who were in ICU have been moved to normal wards and the 13 in the burn unit are in stable condition. - Mkini