‘MITI letters only valid until today’
All work permission letters for interstate and inter-district travel from the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) are only valid until today. Starting from tomorrow, they are no longer applicable. Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the letters could no longer be used effective June 1 and permission letters for travel would instead be issued by the respective ministries. Miti said it would no longer be mandated to provide approval for sectors apart from manufacturing and manufacturing-related services (MRS). A ll non-essential social and economic activities were prohibited in the upcoming nationwide two-week lockdown starting tomorrow, with only 17 essential sectors allowed to operate, including food and beverages, healthcare facilities as well as transportation. Manufacturing and MRS sectors will be allowed to operate, subject to new approval letters downloaded from the Covid-19 Intelligent Management System (CIMS) 3.0. “For sectors other than manufacturing and MRS, companies are required to refer to the relevant ministries regulating their sectors or the National Security Council,” it said. Workers in the manufacturing and MRS sectors would be required to present Miti’s approval letter along with their company-issued letter of employment or staff identification card. (The Star)
Only critical construction and maintence work allowed during MCO, says Fadillah
All construction work will not be allowed to operate during the nationwide total lockdown starting Tuesday (June 1), says Senior Minister (Works) Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof. According to Fadillah, exceptions are however given to sectors deemed as “critical services”, such as maintenance and repair works. Only construction work that is deemed as critical, including the maintenance and repair works of slopes, roads, bridges, and traffic lights, as well as traffic management control (TMC), will be allowed to operate. Periodic inspection and maintenance, pest control, railway track maintenance and repairs, and repairs at residential homes will also be allowed to operate. He stressed that the critical sectors that are allowed to operate must get new approval letters through the CIMS CIDB system at the cims.cidb.gov.my website. It can also be used as an approval for travel by everyone involved in the said project. Fadillah also added that project supervisors will be responsible for ensuring full SOP compliance while construction work is taking place during the MCO. (The Star)
Health DG: We can flatten curve within four months
Malaysia can flatten the Covid-19 curve in three to four months but this will require a combination of public health measures and also an accelerated vaccination drive. Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that with the rise of new variants of concern, the two-week lockdown starting tomorrow was necessary to reduce the number of cases and give frontliners the much-needed breathing space. He also warned that doctors would be forced to make the tough call over which patient should be given a bed in the intensive care unit (ICU) due to the strapped healthcare system caused by the sharp rise in Covid-19 cases. “We have to use the strategy of combining public health measures and increasing vaccination rates, and with this, we may be able to flatten the curve in three to four months,” he said. Dr Noor Hisham also said the number of available beds in the ICU, Covid-19 hospitals as well as in quarantine and treatment centres, were declining due to the rising number of cases. The usage of ICU beds for Covid-19 patients is now at 104% capacity, with 1,113 beds in use, while Covid-19 hospital beds have reached 85% capacity, with 10,190 patients currently hospitalised. (The Star)
Khairy: 1,000 GP clinics, private hospitals to start administering vaccines by June 30
The government is targeting to designate 1,000 general practitioner (GP) clinics and private hospitals as vaccination centres (PPVs) to start administering vaccines before June 30. National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this would enable these PPVs to administer the vaccine, with a target of about 40,000 doses a day subject to vaccine supply. “After this, when the supply of vaccines has increased, we want to facilitate private clinics and hospitals to administer vaccines through our programme for free,” he said. Khairy said that, to date, a total of 1,800 out of 2,500 registered GPs had undergone training with ProtectHealth Corporation Sdn Bhd (ProtectHealth), before opening their respective PPVs. (The Edge)
PropertyGuru to acquire REA Group’s Malaysian and Thai units
Singapore real estate startup PropertyGuru Pte has agreed to acquire all of the shares in REA Group Ltd.’s operating entities in Malaysia and Thailand, whose sites include iProperty.com.my and thinkofliving.com. As part of the agreement, Australia’s REA Group, which is majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. empire, will get an 18% equity interest in PropertyGuru and appoint a director to its board, the Southeast Asian company said in a statement on Monday. No price has been disclosed for the deal. Launched in 2007 in Singapore, PropertyGuru is the largest real estate marketplace in Southeast Asia with operations spanning countries including Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. It is backed by KKR & Co Inc. and TPG Capital LP. (The Edge)
