MOT Is Rolling Out Early Jabs For Over 300,000 E-Hailing Drivers And Delivery Riders
All e-hailing agencies under the Ministry of Transport (MOT) have been instructed to collect the names of taxi, e-hailing, and p-hailing (parcel hailing) drivers and riders for vaccination purposes.
By Jananey Ramachandran — 21 Jul 2021, 02:12 PM
The Ministry of Transport (MOT) is aiming to vaccinate 300,000 taxi, e-hailing, and p-hailing (parcel hailing) drivers and riders nationwide by the end of August
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong stressed that vaccination of such drivers and riders is crucial because the transportation and delivery industry is a 24-hour essential service even during the Movement Control Order (MCO).
In a Facebook post yesterday, 20 July, Wee shared that he had a virtual meeting with the management of Grab to discuss the progress of vaccination with their riders."Around 100,000 e-hailing drivers and 50,000 p-hailing riders are serving under Grab now," he said.
"As frontliners serving the public during MCO, they also need to be given some priority in getting vaccinated to ensure their safety and the safety of their passengers and customers."
Wee said his ministry is working closely with the COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) to expedite the vaccination process
He added that the scheduling process for vaccination is already underway, and will start with about 41,488 taxi and e-hailing drivers and 11,527 p-hailing riders.
"We expect and hope that with everyone's cooperation, the public transport drivers and p-hailing riders will be vaccinated by end of August," Wee said.
In total, MOT aims to vaccinate 40,000 taxi drivers, 110,000 e-hailing drivers, and 154,000 p-hailing riders nationwide as soon as possible
In an earlier Facebook post on Friday, 16 July, in response to Segambut member of parliament (MP) Hannah Yeoh who called on the government to protect these industry players from catching the infection and infecting others, Wee said the scheduling process had started since mid-June this year.
"An additional list of around 57,931 p-hailing riders has also been submitted for CITF's consideration," he said, adding that he needed to thank CITF for their assistance in expediting vaccinations for this group of frontliners.
He also stressed that MOT aims to achieve its target of getting 80% of taxi and e-hailing drivers vaccinated by end of August, particularly in KL, Selangor, and Sarawak due to worrying numbers of daily confirmed cases.
However, in response to the recent update, Yeoh still expressed her disagreement.
"Reading the title sounds like it is urgently being done but if you read until the end of the article it says by end August. End of August is NOT 'quickly'," she said in a Facebook post on Wednesday, 21 July.
