Sabah awaits Federal Govt’s green light on SOPs

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government is awaiting the Federal Government's nod on SOPs to roll out its plan to ease restriction on several sectors of the economy.

Sabah Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said that the state's decision was unanimously made by the Sabah disaster management committee.

His statement comes after Sabah's plan to reopen businesses in several sectors on Tuesday (June 29) was scuttled by enforcement officials asking coffee shops to stop their dine-in services.

Without making any direct reference to an earlier statement by Defence Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob that states cannot change SOPs set by the Federal Government, Masidi said that they were waiting for the approval for the fresh SOPs.

He said that Sabah's plan to relax the current SOPs for certain industries was stated by the Chief Minister under Phase One of the National Recovery Plan on Monday (June 28).

The Sabah government has presented the new SOPs for the state to the federal side, and are waiting for it to be gazetted.

“The decision on this new SOPs has been unanimously agreed by the state Covid-19 disaster management committee chaired by the state secretary (Datuk Safar Untong).

“Among the committee members who went through the new proposed SOPs are head of departments from the state Health Department, Sabah police and the state National Security Council,” he said.

Masidi said Safar is also expected to issue a separate statement with more details on the SOPs soon.

Earlier, confusion arose about the dine-in ruling, which according to the Chief Minister’s statement on Monday, would be allowed starting Tuesday.

Some coffee shop operators in different areas across the state said they were advised by local authorities to wait for the fresh SOPs for dine-in businesses.

Meanwhile, Sabah recorded 178 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, with a new cluster dubbed Muhibbah Manggatal detected in the Kota Kinabalu district and neighbouring Tuaran and Penampang.

The index case was a 49-year-old male driver for a statutory body based in the city centre, who tested positive on June 20.

Forty more cases from targeted screenings were reported, bringing the cumulative cases for the cluster to 41, said Masidi.