Home Ministry Will Raid Factories Flouting Sops Ismail Sabri

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The government has vowed stern action against factories which flout the standard operating procedures (SOPs) under full lockdown, said senior minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
Ismail Sabri said the National Security Council (NSC) today decided that the Home Ministry will clamp down on offenders, including by coordinating raids together with other enforcement agencies nationwide.
His announcement came after news reports on businesses and factories violating the Covid-19 SOPs.
Currently, raids and inspections at factories were jointly carried out by the Labour Department, local authorities and the local health office, while the police were only roped in to assist the operations.
“Of late, the government received many complaints involving the manufacturing sector allegedly abusing the authorisation letter by conducting non-essential services throughout the implementation of movement control order (MCO),” Ismail Sabri said in a statement today.
The defence minister said some factories had also infringed on the work-from-home-rule, which stipulated that 40 percent of the workforce should work remotely.
“Based on the information (received), there were factories detected operating exceeding 60 percent workforce capacity while some workers with quarantine bracelets were instructed to come to work,” he said.
“As such, the government will take stern action against factories which flouted the SOP via inspections and raids. The factories, once being identified (as violating the SOPs) will be ordered to close down immediately and compounds will be issued.”
Putrajaya courted flak for allowing tens of thousands businesses, including non-essential businesses to operate during the ongoing full lockdown, which was implemented after a surge of Covid-19 cases.
As of June 3, the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) had issued approval letters to 128,150 out of 586,308 applicants through CIMS 3.0.
This constituted an approval rate of just under 22 percent.
The 128,150 approved firms had a total of 1.57 million workers. - Mkini

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