Last Saturday, the government had announced its plan to integrate several new directives for the ongoing implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) 3.0. They will be enforced starting from tomorrow, 25 May onwards and among such directives include limiting the operational hours of the retail industry from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
However, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP) has since provided additional information regarding the new policy. According to the statement released by the ministry yesterday, customers can only stay in retail stores or shopping malls for a maximum duration of two hours once the new directive is put in place tomorrow.
So, who will be responsible for monitoring this time limit? Based on another document that was released earlier today, the responsibility falls on the retail store and shopping mall operators themselves. Inside the same document, KPDNHEP said that they should adopt a numbering system for their customers as well as put up constant reminders regarding the time limit through their public address system and perform time checks on their customers from time to time.
The Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, Alexander Nanta Linggi during a press conference today said that retailers and mall operators can use the timestamp on their customer’s MySejahtera check-ins as the reference time to help them implement the new policy. He also revealed that monitoring will be done at random at first, with around 2,200 KPDNHEP enforcers deployed at selected areas throughout the country to assist retailers.
That being said, the minister hopes that customers are able to adhere and self-monitor the time limit themselves. We foresee that this approach will be a monumental challenge for all parties involved in the enforcement of this policy but given the high number of positive COVID-19 cases as of late, you may not want to linger around outside of your home for too long anyway.
(Source: KPDNHEP / Facebook – [1][2][3 – starts at 13:58 mark].)
