KUALA LUMPUR: Shopping malls welcomed the stricter movement control order (MCO) 3.0 with its enhanced Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) which will take effect from Tuesday for two weeks.
"We laud the Government for issuing the latest MCO conditions and SOPs which are effective and practical, taking cognisance for the need to balance between protecting lives and livelihoods," said the Malaysia Shopping Malls Association (PPK).
Association members said they were glad that their views and proposals for stricter SOPs were considered to combat the pandemic, yet trying to balance the negative effects on businesses.
"Our member malls have further enhanced and tightened the condition of entry to the malls where only those whose status is in the low-risk category as determined by MySejahtera are allowed in.
"To enforce this, we have advocated removing manual book entries to avoid shoppers recording any false and inaccurate risk level status which we are unable to verify. Although we will lose the patronage of those not registered with MySejahtera, we believe it is better for the good of the wider community," PPK said in a statement.
Furthermore, it added that association members cannot risk any wrong data being collected by the HIDE system leading to erroneously classifying a location as a potential Hotspot and are hopeful the authorities would make equitable and judicious decisions on any future action.
Unfortunately, PPK said there are incidents of enforcement personnel insisting that manual entry book be available and indeed, fines have been issued.
"We seek the National Security Council to rationalise the conflicting SOPs and to inform all enforcement agencies that providing manual book entries is not compulsory but optional only where there is insufficient wifi coverage.
"We also seek the full cooperation of all shoppers to be self-disciplined and not to patronise malls when they do not have the 'low risk' status in their MySejahtera as the current SOPs require us to only admit those under the low-risk category," it said.
"We seriously need to speed up the national vaccination program to achieve herd immunity as soon as possible.
"All of us must recognise that combating Covid-19 is truly a community effort by all and for all – including especially the rakyat to be even more self-disciplined, the authorities to take timely and wise directions as well as for the private sector to share their resources to collaborate in this joint effort," PPK said.
The restrictions announced by Senior Minister (security cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Saturday will serve as the additional rules to the SOP on the current MCO 3.0, which came into force on May 12.