The food baskets will be channelled through the district offices and the district Disaster Operations Control Centre in Papar, Beaufort, Membakut, Kota Kinabalu, Kota Marudu, Pitas, Beluran, Tongod, Kinabatangan, Lahad Datu, Tungku, Kunak, Semporna, Tawau and Kalabakan.

Chief minister Hajiji Noor, who is also Sawit Kinabalu group chairman, witnessed the symbolic cheque presentation from the group’s managing director Bacho Jansie to state secretary Safar Untong today.

In his statement, Hajiji said the state government has been distributing 40,736 food baskets under the Bantuan Sabah Prihatin (BSP) 3.0 programme since June 19.

Prior to this, a total of 322,122 food baskets had been distributed under BSP 1.0, and 367,231 baskets under BSP 2.0.

Hajiji said he hoped that Sawit Kinabalu’s contribution will assist those whose lives have been impacted by the pandemic.

“In addition to community development leaders, I urge all elected representatives to be hands-on and continue with efforts in their respective constituencies to speed up the vaccine registration process so that we can achieve the objectives of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme,” he said.

“Likewise, I urge NGOs to volunteer their time and effort to help in this process.

“We need to step up manual registrations in places where internet connectivity is lacking, and this is where help is most needed to complement the mobile outreach programmes,” Hajiji said.

He said the number of people who have been vaccinated in Sabah has increased steadily from 326,556 to 333,983 over the past two days.

“We hope to see our target of 30,000 daily vaccinations from July, surpassing the current daily record of 13,000 people,” he said.