NETIZENS have hailed the call by DAP national publicity secretary and MP for Damansara Tony Pua for the Immigration Department not just ‘to review’ the categories of applications but to scrap entirely the MyTravelPass scheme which has outlived its usefulness.
To re-cap, the MyTravelPass was implemented at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic where travel abroad was deemed highly risky, especially when local infection rates were then extremely low and no vaccines were available.
However, the circumstances have changed dramatically as the risk of foreign-borne infections are today far lower than local infections which have been widespread.
Based on yesterday’s (Sept 21) 15,759 infections, only 27 or less than 0.2% were imported cases. In addition, these imported cases were ‘controlled’ due to the stringent quarantine process.
“Phasing out MyTravelPass is a critical component of Malaysia’s road to economic recovery as it will play a significant role in reviving our ailing travel industry – airlines, airports, travel agencies etc which employs hundreds of thousands of workers,” he pointed out in a statement.
“It will also relieve our immigration officials from the tedious task of processing the thousands of applications weekly and be redeployed to more productive and urgent tasks, particularly those related to the reopening of our economy in the coming weeks and months.”
Netizen Terrence Lim lamented that the staff handling the MyTravelPass application are so inefficient with the application status being “in progress” for more than two weeks.
“They should learn from Thailand. To enter Thailand, their website says three days but they responded within the same day whether it is successful or rejected (also clear reason of rejection),” suggested Lim.
“Imagine the volume the Thai immigration is facing (from all around the world) vs our own population. Really memalukan (shameful). Time to remove this with a more efficient system or procedures.”
Mimiey Azniee and Natasha Ali are in favour of the abolishment of the MyTravelPass as they can no longer bear the long-haul separation from their spouse and fiancée respectively.
“I already postponed my marriage with my partner for almost one-and-a-half year because we cannot enter and exit Malaysia,” regretted Mimiey. “Please consider how many years do we have to wait some more.”
David Foo noted that quarantine order for those returning from overseas needed to be reviewed, too given it is counterproductive to quarantine all travellers except those who are tested positive (similar to H1N1 influenza) with the infection soon to enter the endemic stage.
“Risk of being infected will be the same. In fact, people will be more concerned of being infected in our country than theirs in view of our infectivity rate,” opined Foo. “The important measure is for travellers to be tested before and upon their arrival.” – Sept 22, 2021
