Covid-19 screening on foreign workers in six states must start Jan 1

 

COVID-19 | Enforcement on the remaining employers to start sending their foreign workers for mandatory Covid-19 screening will begin on Jan 1 but it will focus only on six states that are deemed to be high risk.

The states are Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Penang, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and Labuan, involving about 800,000 foreign workers.

This was told by the Human Resources Minister M Saravanan to the English daily The Star.

“On Jan 1, the enforcement will be on the remaining employers to start sending their foreign workers to be screened,” he told the daily.

Enforcement in other states will start after February next year, where employers in those remaining states are given until the end of February to send their foreign workers to be tested for Covid-19.

Saravanan said as of yesterday, 2,385 employers had sent 68,460 foreign workers to be tested.

The directive was announced on Dec 1.

However, Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) president Soh Thian Lai has called on the authorities to postpone the enforcement on Jan 1 due to a shortage of test kits in panel clinics and hospitals.

“There was a delay in getting the screening done for the first batch that began on Dec 1 as the Socso panel hospitals and clinics had yet to obtain the subsidised test kits.

“We call on the authorities not to take any action on employers who have pending appointment confirmations,” Soh told the daily. - Mkini