THE Seberang Perai City Council (MBSP) has taken preventive measures to safeguard its workers from contracting the Covid-19 virus.
MBSP mayor Datuk Rozali Mohamud said the preventive measures are very crucial now as the Covid-19 situation is becoming increasingly worrying.
“As of Aug 14, there were 100 active cases and three deaths. Meanwhile, 109 staff members have recovered from the disease.
“These 100 active cases do not come from the MBSP headquarters building only but they also involve other MBSP buildings such as branch offices, cleaning depot and pump houses in Seberang Perai.
“Our data also shows that the increase of Covid-19 cases among our staff started since Aug 5, with 10 to 15 new cases per day.
“So based on this situation, the council has decided to activate the contingency plan on Aug 10.
“The contingency plan contains 18 steps to minimise the risk of infection, maintain the safety and health of our staff and ensure services to the people are not affected,” Rozali said in his speech during a virtual corporate meeting at the MBSP headquarters building in Bandar Perda, Bukit Mertajam today.
Among the preventive measures, Rozali said, is the implementation of ‘work from home’ (WFH) initiative.
“Only 20% of our workers will be at the office for essential tasks and another 80% of them are working from home.
“All meetings also must be conducted online. Covid-19 swab test also is immediately performed on the close contact and the cost is fully borne by MBSP.
“Our service counters only cater to those who have made an appointment. And only four counters are open.
“We also provide ‘Cyber Counter Corner’ at the council building to teach those who do not make an appointment to use MBSP cyber counters instead.
“As a matter of fact, we encourage all Seberang Perai residents to fully utilise our cyber counters to do the necessary transaction online.
“After all, we have already prepared 100 types of services for the MBSP cyber counters. So everything is there already and there is no need for them to physically come to the counter unless it is really urgent.
“This is important to minimise human movement to control the spread of the virus,” he added.
Apart from that, Rozali said MBSP also has given a contribution of RM150 each to the staff members who contracted Covid-19.
“The RM150 contribution is in the form of daily necessities such as rice, cooking oil, noodles, face masks, canned food, toothpaste, toothbrush, biscuits, eggs, baby diapers, medicines and many others.
“I also would like to urge every head of department in MBSP to be more concerned and communicate frequently with the staff and their families that are infected with Covid-19 to determine what kind of assistance that is needed by them.
“As a mayor, I will try my best in my capacity to give immediate approval to help them in these trying times,” he added.
Rozali also shared that as of Aug 14, a total of 2,989 workers or 74% of the 3,996 MBSP workers were already vaccinated.
“And I hope the rest of them will be vaccinated soon to curb the spread of Covid-19 infection,” he added.
Story by Riadz Akmal
Pix by Darwina Mohd Daud