Govt To Identify The Agency Responsible For Checking Vaccination Status At Airports Hamzah Says

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The Home Ministry is currently identifying which government agency will be responsible to determine the status of a fully vaccinated person at an airport before he or she is allowed to travel abroad. -NSTP file picKAJANG: The Home Ministry is currently identifying which government agency will be responsible to determine the status of a fully vaccinated person at an airport before he or she is allowed to travel abroad.This is following recent revelations that 12 returning Umrah pilgrims who had tested positive for the Covid-19 Omicron variant upon arriving in Malaysia had turned out to be unvaccinated before they left the country.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said it was wrong to blame the Immigration Department over the matter, describing it as "something unexpected", but gave his assurances that the issue would soon be rectified.
"We understand that this is a mistake and we are identifying which among the frontliners (government agencies) should determine whether a traveller can be given a boarding pass.
"The Immigration Department should not be blamed because every person who goes through the security checks will bring along their boarding pass.
"They should've been checked (on their vaccination status) before they are given boarding passes which is before they go through the immigration checkpoints.
"Once a traveller goes through the Immigration checkpoint, we will then allow the person to pass through," he told reporters when met at Taman Sri Nanding in Hulu Langat today.
Hamzah said he would speak to airline operators to get them to improve their process of issuing boarding passes.
He suggested that airline workers at their respective counters could conduct the necessary checking on a person's vaccination status before issuing the boarding pass.
Hamzah also slammed those who blamed government agencies for failing to monitor and control movements of unvaccinated people when travelling in and out of the country. - NST

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