Stating that the provisions under the Emergency Ordinance were found to have been effective in preventing the spread of Covid-19, Noor Hisham said it was important that there be continuity in enforcing such standards.
“The next session of Parliament is three months from now, thus affecting the continuity and effectiveness of (Covid-19 SOP) enforcement,” he said in a press conference today.
“We need these amendments as soon as possible. It will be quite long until the next parliament session. We will be hampered if there is a spread of new variants like Omicron.”
He added that while there have been several amendments made to the Act, they were all about changes to the list of diseases.
The current parliament session is set to end on Thursday and will resume in March. Noor Hisham said the amendments will be debated in the Dewan Rakyat tomorrow but he was not sure whether they would be passed by Thursday.
He did hope they would be passed “quickly” due to concerns about another wave of Covid-19 cases.
“We’re seeing a rise in cases in the UK and Europe, and when that happens, Malaysia always faces the same thing in the next two or three months,” he said.
Under the Emergency (Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases) Ordinance 2021, the government raised penalties for SOP breaches to a maximum of RM10,000 for individuals and RM50,000 for organisations or companies.
The ordinance was revoked last Wednesday as with the six other Emergency Ordinances that were in effect from March 11 as a result of the Emergency, which ran from January to August.
Noor Hisham noted that under the current Act, there is no difference in the fines meted out to individuals, companies or organisations for SOP breaches – all of whom can only be fined a maximum of RM1,000.
“Using this 1988 law to fine glovemakers RM1,000, won’t have any effect,” he said.
“We have to see how we can increase the compounds so they will have an effect on companies, especially those which are repeat offenders and where clusters have been detected a few times.”
“In 1988, when the Act was drafted, it did not take into account pandemics, just epidemics and outbreaks. So it’s time to review it.
“If we were to compound a multi-billion ringgit company RM1,000, that won’t be a deterrent to them.”
Other key points of the amendments include providing enforcement powers to authorities other than from the health ministry, the use of tracking devices, isolating positive cases in places other than quarantine stations, and more specific compound rates for individuals and corporate bodies.
Noor Hisham assured the public that the amendments would be detailed, adding that “it’s not like we will fine those not wearing facemasks RM10,000”.
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