As three more migrant workers’ dormitories were being identified as new COVID-19 clusters over the past weekend, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) revealed on 4 September that 16,000 workers were yet to be scheduled for Rostered Routine Testing (RRT).
Yesterday (7 September), MOM released a press statement updating that 13,000 workers who were required to undergo RRT had yet to do so.
The Ministry explained that along with the Economic Development Board, Building and Construction Authority, and Health Promotion Board, they had engaged with the employers and reminded them to schedule their migrant workers for RRT.
“Since August, the Ministry of Manpower, Economic Development Board, Building and Construction Authority, and Health Promotion Board have been engaging the employers and reminding them to schedule their workers for RRT before the 5 September deadline.”
As mentioned in MOM’s previous statement, the workers who failed to schedule for RRT will have their AccessCode Status reflect Red and they will not be able to return to work.
The statement added that this move was to “protect” the health and safety of other workers.
However, once the workers have undergone RRT, their AccessCode Status will be restored to Green, thus allowing them to resume working.
Employers were urged to schedule appointment slots for their workers on the Health Promotion Board’s Swab Registration System (SRS) to avoid disruption to their business operations.
Netizens’ comments
While many netizens believed that the Government should send the migrant workers back to their home countries, others commented that there may be a problem with the system that resulted in a large number of them not scheduled for RRT.
C Jay, Jeffrey, Ann and Colin expressed that the MOM should be responsible for the delay, instead of blaming the employers for being “unresponsive”.
Some comments had also suggested that it was not the workers’ fault and that their employers should be held accountable. There were also a few netizens who believed that the employers who did not schedule their workers for RRT did not have on-going work to attend to, or had gone bankrupt.
