KUCHING: Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) has called on the government to take immediate action to suspend the requirement for permit to travel from Pakan to Sarikei, following news reports of a long queue by Pakan folk at the police station to get inter-district travel passes.
“It is ridiculous to force people to congregate together during this Covid-19 pandemic and this makes a mockery of the Movement Control Order (MCO) and its effort to break the chain of transmission of the virus,” it said in a statement today.
In addition, PSB pointed out that this requirement creates additional hardship for the poor people in Pakan who already suffer from lack of fuel station and automated teller machine (ATM).
“Why make their life even harder during this crisis?
“It would be a disaster if a cluster of infection results from this group of people being forced to congregate in one place for the unnecessary permit,” it said.
PSB was referring to the front page news in The Borneo Post titled ‘Hundreds queue in front of Pakan Police Station to obtain inter-district travel passes’. The people were seen queuing on Monday to to obtain passes to visit Sarikei as required under the MCO.
Their main reason to come down to Sarikei was to withdraw money and buy fuel, a resident was quoted as saying.
“We have to travel to Sarikei as we don’t have fuel stations in Pakan to refill out tanks and neither do we have Automated Teller Machine (ATM) around to enable us to withdraw our money,” he added.