Welcoming Phase 2 of National Recovery Plan (NRP) in Sarawak with open arms

The folks in Sarawak had welcomed the announcement of our state entering Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) which starts on 14 July and certainly we can ex­pect the re­open­ing of more econ­omy sec­tors, as long as they re­main fully com­pli­ant with the Covid-19 stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures (SOP).

I have mentioned this to our media friends during my recent working visit to Miri and I have also re­it­er­ated the im­por­tance of strict ad­her­ence to the SOP in flat­ten­ing the Covid-19 curve. We have ac­knowl­edged the peo­ple's concern when the oper­a­tions of many eco­nomic sec­tors have been forced to close tem­po­rar­ily to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Syukur alhamdullilah, un­der Phase 2 of the NRP many sec­tors would grad­u­ally re­open in­clud­ing the con­struc­tion sites but we continue to call upon the peo­ple to re­main vig­i­lant through­out this pan­demic period.

I was in Miri for day trip to grace the "Ziarah Belia" program at Kampung Bakam in Lambir which is a good youth engagement and road­show pro­gram that fo­cus­es on closer en­gage­ment with the young generation at grass­roots level.

The main purpose of organising the program by Ministry of Youth and Sports is essentially getting in touch and reach our to  the youths in ev­ery district across Sarawak even though the planned ac­tiv­i­ties were un­able to be car­ried out due to the prevailing Covid-19 situation. 

But we take our hats off to our local youths in Sarawak who are still ac­tively in­volved in var­i­ous com­mu­nity works and their involvement dur­ing this time of the pan­demic is much welcomed especially when they can come for­ward to become our front­lin­ers.

Kudos to MYSS who had collaborated with our Sarawak United National Youth Organization (SABERKAS) in giving away ‘Covid-19 Sup­port Packs’ to those in Bekenu, Pi­asau, Pu­jut, Se­nadin, Marudi and Te­lang Usan branches, 11 of its units in Lam­bir, as well as two lo­cal youth clubs and six local bad­minton clubs.

The pre­sen­ta­tion of the support packs include mini ther­mome­ters, a box of face masks, a box of la­tex gloves and a box of hand sani­tis­ers in which the distribution was con­ducted via "drive-thru", where the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of each re­ceiv­ing body picked up the items as they drove past the Kampung Bakam com­mu­nity hall.

Big thanks to those who had accompanied me during the distribution ceremony which include YB Ripin Lamat, the Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN) for N62 Lambir, YB Dennis Ngau, the ADUN for N77 Telang Usan, YB Safiee Ahmad, the ADUN for N43 Daro and YB Lukanisman Awang Sauni, the Member of Parliament for N218 Sibuti.

Also present were our acting Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Youth and Sports Sarawak, Puan Nancy Haji Jolhi and Dr Ong Kong Swee, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sarawak Sports Corporation (SSC).