WHEN the Federal Government announced the reimplementation of the movement control order (MCO 2.0) early this year, various essential sectors were allowed to operate but with stricter health and safety measures imposed.
Unlike the first MCO in March last year, this time around, people were given the reasonable liberty to move around freely, of course with proper documents to support their travel purposes.
This also meant there’s more work on the field for our frontliners, especially the police officers stationed at roadblocks throughout the state.
Buletin Mutiara visited the southwest Penang district police headquarters in Balik Pulau today to interview the officers on the scope of their work at the roadblocks across their entire district.
Balik Pulau OCPD Supt A. Anbalagan said that due to the various sectors that have been allowed to operate now, the number of vehicles within the southwest district has increased tremendously.
“Although the number has increased, I have to say that we have not encountered any big issues such as difficult road users, accidents and so on.
“Most of the time, people are either travelling to work, buying household items, going down to the clinics or hospitals and so on,” he said during the interview session with Buletin Mutiara at his office today.
Separately, Anbalagan reminded the people to only travel if there is a need to and always abide by the standard operating procedures (SOPs).
“We won’t compromise and stricter action will be taken against those who flout the SOPs,” he added.
He also said as of now, there are six roadblocks across the southwest Penang island district, and a total of around 45 roadblocks in the entire state.
“We have eight officers stationed at each roadblock, which includes five police officers, one Rela member and two Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM) officers.
“In terms of implementing stricter measures, we are planning to increase the headcount of members under the inspection team that mainly functions to closely monitor people and their failure to comply with SOPs,” he added.
Insp K. Loganathan, who is directly in charge of matters involving logistics, said that there would usually be three shifts to man each roadblock.
The first shift is from 12.30am to 8am; second shift from 8am to 4pm and lastly the third shift is from 4pm to 12am.
“The officers are working really hard day and night, so at this point of time, we have a standby group that would come in anytime as and when necessary,” he said.
The Federal Government had recently announced that MCO 2.0 has been extended from Feb 4 to Feb 18.
Story by Kevin Vimal
Pix by Darwina Mohd Daud