Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has announced that the current mandatory stay-home notices (SHN) issued to all work permit holders and S Pass holders in the construction industry will be extended by a further 14 days to cover another incubation cycle will help to break the cycle of transmission.
This decision is said to have been made after careful consideration by MOM and Building and Construction Authority (BCA in response to the public health assessment by the Ministry of Health.
The work permit holders and S Pass holders will therefore serve their SHN until 18 May 2020, 2359 hours. Similarly, the Dependant Pass holders of these workers will be placed on SHN for the same extended period.
It earlier announced that on Monday (20 April) that all work permit holders and S Pass holders in the construction industry will be placed on mandatory SHNs till 4 May, with both dates included in the SHN period.
According to MOM, this is to ensure that there is no further interactions between the workers and those outside their residential premises.
This requirement had been introduced as a precautionary measure, to protect employers and workers from the risk of further transmission of COVID-19 at construction worksites.
The number of infected construction work pass holders living in non-purpose-built dormitories (PBD) premises continues to rise.
According to MOM, their incidence/prevalence remains noticeably higher than the general community. This suggests that transmission at construction worksites among such workers had occurred before the start of the SHN period. The cases that are now being observed could have been incubated earlier or may have spread among the workers’ close contacts and house-mates.
The Government will support SCAL in this effort by providing matching funds to supplement what SCAL is able to raise from the industry. SCAL is in the midst of pooling funds and estimates the overall pot to be between $800,000 to $1,000,000, potentially providing assistance to at least 500 SMEs and 5,000 employees.
More details will be released by SCAL at a later date.
