By Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye
KOTA KINABALU: The Government has shown that it is gradually working towards economic recovery when it announced first important step to return the country to normalcy in the tourism and plantation sectors.
From Nov 15, it will cautiously relax the rules to allow international tourists to enter holiday spots in Langkawi and elsewhere while facilitating the arrival of foreign workers for the plantation industry.
The next three months will be a litmus test to determine whether or not to allow further relaxation of the SOPs in the weeks ahead.
Announcing these measures, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the new SOP list approved by the Covid 19 pandemic management special committee would later be evaluated by the Ministry of Health and the National Security Council.
If successful, the new rules could be applied to other islands and tourist destinations, and hopefully to more sectors desirous of employing foreign workers.
The success of these initiatives will depend to a large extent on compliance by all the parties concerned—tourist agencies, hotels, homestays, plantation owners, and law enforcers.
If there is laxity in this chain, resulting in a spike in the number of infections, the commendable efforts of the Health Ministry to secure a high level of vaccination and to return to normalcy will come to naught.
And if that happens, we will see a return to the dark ages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The people must now resolve to leave no stone unturned in ensuring compliance with all the new SOPs without compromise and law enforcers must be resolute in performing their duties.
At the same time it is hoped that, on its part, the authorities will be receptive to comments and suggestions by the public to relax or alter some aspects of the new SOPs if they are found to be counter-productive or morally or practically indefensible.
For instance, some people may find it unconscionable that the target group for the international tourism bubble initiative is the ‘high-spending tourists’.
Why the emphasis on high-spending tourists. The low-spending tourists have the same –sometimes more so –need as the high-spending tourists to seek emotional and physical relief.
We must always be mindful not only be enamored by the big spenders.
By this emphasis, we are sending the wrong signals. The rich and the not-so-rich should be equally entitled to enjoy their brief respite from the pandemic restrictions.
We must show the world that we are a nation of people who are less mercenary and more caring.
CHAIRMAN,
ALLIANCE FOR SAFE COMMUNITY
