Selangor exco: Factories remain open because state govt bound by NSC decision

 

The Selangor government is bound by the decision made by the National Security Council (NSC) to keep factories open, despite the Covid-19 figures remaining consistently high within the state.

Local Government and Public Transportation exco Ng Sze Han said the NSC is empowered under its own Act to issue any directives for the sake of national security, including to a “government entity”.

“Orders issued by the NSC is a legal requirement that must be complied with and which binds the state government.

“The state government through the local authorities (PBT) is responsible for ensuring factories are operating in compliance with their licence conditions.

“That is why the state government will not close a factory if the factory has approval from the International Trade and Industries Ministry (Miti) and complies with their licence conditions which were set by the PBT,” Ng said during the Selangor state assembly today.

He was responding to a question from Long Tuck Chee (Pakatan Harapan – Pandamaran) about the power vested in the Selangor government to order factories to stop operating.

However, Ng said factories that violate the regulations set by the PBT will be ordered to close.

A number of factories have already been ordered to cease operations due to violating local regulations, he added, though he does not have the exact figure.

Meanwhile, on a separate issue, Public Health, Unity and Women and Family Development exco Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud claimed the Health Ministry had given the excuse that they were concerned about data theft in the process of integrating the MySejahtera and Selangkah applications.

However, she said not all data will be shared between the two apps.

“Not all data (from Selangkah) will be given to MySejahtera and vice versa for contact tracing. This is because all the data is anonymous,” Siti Mariah said in the same state assembly sitting.

She was responding to a question from Mohd Fakhrulrazi Mohd Mokhtar (Harapan – Meru) who had asked about the data privacy of Selangkah users if the data was shared with MySejahtera.

For the record, MySejahtera is developed by the federal government whereas Selangkah was an initiative by the Selangor state government.

Siti Mariah, who stressed that data integration between the two apps is important for the sake of contact tracing, added that she would meet with the new Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin soon to discuss the integration of the two apps. - Mkini