Covid-19: Over 1.06 mln Sabahans benefitted from state govt assistance

KOTA KINABALU: More than 1.06 million Sabahans have thus far benefitted from the state government’s allocation of RM160 million for Covid-19 assistance, the Sabah State Legislative Assembly was told yesterday.

Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor said that of the total allocation, RM34.86 million was channelled via the food basket assistance programme involving 169,345 recipients affected by the spread of Covid19 pandemic.

He said apart from that, the state government had also provided one-off financial assistance to those affected as well as three months of rental exemption for hawkers and those living in the People’s Housing Project, beginning last month.

“More than RM33.75 million has been spent under the the Prihatin assistance, involving 113,919 recipients, including over RM7.3 million which has been channelled under general assistance including for orphans, the elderly, children and the disabled,” he said.

He said this in his reply to an oral question from Calvin Chong Ket Kiun (Warisan-Elopura) who asked about the allocation of funds provided by the state government for the people of Sabah affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Hajiji added that more than RM15.66 million had been channelled to the B40 group, including farmers, fishermen, oil palm growers, cocoa smallholders, rubber tappers and breeders involving 52,228 recipients.

The federal government had also channelled RM50 million through the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) to curb the spread of Covid-19, for the purchase of personal protective equipment and other necessities at quarantine centres as well as Covid-19 treatment, he said.

“The federal government also helps the Sabahans in the form of financial assistance through the cost of living aid (BSH) to 406,000 recipients amounting to RM474 million and the Bantuan Prihatin Nasional (BPN) to 905,000 recipients totalling RM983 million,” he said.

Meanwhile, a total of 542,523 Covid-19 screenings had been conducted in Sabah from Feb 1 until Nov 15 with 23,095 positive cases detected.

As of Sunday, the number of samples in the laboratory was at 3,755 and the Ministry of Health has taken steps to reduce the number, he said.

“Samples are processed in three laboratories, namely, the Kota Kinabalu Public Health Laboratory, Universiti Malaysia Sabah Laboratory and Queen Elizabeth Hospital Laboratory with a capacity of 2,700 samples per day, as well as outsourcing samples to private laboratories in the state,” he said.

He said that for the time being the government has no plan to build an additional hospital to accommodate Covid19 patients as the existing 11 government hospitals as well as 35 Covid-19 quarantine and treatment centres are sufficient to meet the patients’ treatment needs.