STATE-OWNED power utility company, Sarawak Energy Bhd, will conduct a physical site compliance audit to weed out illegal foreign workers at its Covid-19-hit Baleh hydroelectric dam construction site.

Utilities Minister Dr Stephen Rundi said the SEB audit would be conducted as soon as the enhanced movement control order (EMCO) – in effect from Tuesday until May 26 – is lifted.

Rundi said all contractors have been warned and those found to have employed foreign workers without valid work permits “will be dealt with severely”.

“While the investigation progresses, the Baleh hydroelectric project team will also increase surveillance at its contractor camps with more frequent audit and spot checks on the workers and security personnel stationed at site,” he said.

He said the surveillance and checks will complement the regular joint operations between SEB, the Sarawak Immigration Department and police to screen workers without valid work permits at the site.

“As a wholly government-owned company and under the purview of my ministry, Sarawak Energy has zero tolerance for the employment of workers without valid permits whether foreign or local.

“All contractors and their staff are required to comply strictly to the laws and regulations of Sarawak and Malaysia.

“Details of labour engagement and work permit requirements are specified in the contract document between Sarawak Energy and the respective contractors,” Rundi said.

He also said a regulatory and permitting function unit also exists within SEB to ensure compliance to work processes that screen workers, and this includes weekly manpower reporting and regular onsite audit to verify the validity of work passes.

Rundi said despite all these procedures and high security requirements, SEB continues to face major challenges in the control of unauthorised entries into the project site.

The investigation came after a ticking off from Deputy Chief Minister James Masing who on Tuesday warned SEB and the main contractor for the dam, China Gezhouba Group Company Ltd (CGGC), that they would be held accountable for all the illegal workers they employ, particularly those who were found to be infected with Covid-19 and had brought their infection to the site.

Masing, who also chairs a border security committee under the state disaster management committee, has always voiced the fear that undocumented workers from Kalimantan, Indonesia, who do not go through health screening, becoming a possible source for the spread of the Covid-19.

The cluster at the dam, named the Putai cluster, is in the Bukit Mabong district in Kapit and in Masing’s constituency of Baleh.

Yesterday, four more cases were reported there, to add to the 577 cases reported up till Tuesday.

Rundi said the effort of his ministry now is to work with SEB to manage the situation at the dam project site where over 500 Sarawakians are working.

Since March last year, at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, SEB has instituted strict standard operating procedure (SOP) with controlled entries and exits that have kept the Baleh site free from Covid-19 up until now, Rundi said.

In January, when the number of infections began to spike in Kapit, the project site instituted additional precautionary requirements.

However, on April 18, a local worker from the Kapit area who had returned to work tested positive for the virus. He had come into contact with two victims from the deadly Pasai cluster.

Mass testing immediately commenced and when a high number of positive cases were detected among the workers, the site emergency response plan was activated.

Rundi said the project site was immediately placed on lockdown even before the EMCO was ordered.

Work at site has stopped and all workers have been either segregated into onsite quarantine centres or confined to their camps and living quarters.

It was during this testing that it was discovered 60 workers out of 970 at the site were without the necessary permits.

Rundi said, with the exception of one who was found to be positive and receiving medical care, all have been expelled and escorted out from Baleh site by Immigration Department officers last Saturday. – April 29, 2021.