Sabah govt allows full worker capacity for several sectors, says Masidi

KOTA KINABALU: Full worker capacity is allowed for several sectors under the agriculture and food industry, says Datuk Masidi Manjun.

“The ruling will be based on an updated standard operating procedure (SOP) for the selected sectors which have been approved by the Health Ministry,” said the state Local Government and Housing Minister.

The activities allowed for full capacity of manpower from 6am to 6pm are in rubber, cocoa, and oil palm plantations, as well as in farming, livestock and fisheries, he said in the statement issued on Thursday (Oct 29).

Aside from setting up protocols at the workplace, plantation owners are also required to provide a suitable quarantine space should any of the workers started showing symptoms of Covid-19, he said.

"The identified workers must be given medical treatment immediately besides being quarantined," he said.

Meanwhile, rubber, cocoa and palm oil-based industrial and milling activities will still be confined to the current 50% worker capacity regulation.

Also in the same category are agriculture input stores (machinery, equipment, fertilisers, seedlings, weed and pest killers), hardware stores (agriculture and heavy-duty machines, engines and replacement parts), workshops (agriculture and heavy-duty machines, engines) and electrical stores (equipment for cold storage, processing, storing, transportation and packaging).

The marketing, export and import activities of agricultural products are also still at 50% workers capacity.

Meanwhile, there were 352 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday in Sabah with no fatalities recorded, bringing the cumulative number of cases to 14,053.

“Some 3,848 patients are still undergoing treatment where 72 of them are in the intensive care unit (ICU), while 27 patients required breathing aid,” said Masidi.