Public-private partnerships in Action

on Monday, August 22, 2022 at 1:58:00 am

In early August, during an ASEAN level Business Advisory Council webinar, the private sector was recognised for stepping up during the pandemic in terms of delivering healthcare services like COVID treatment, quarantine centres and COVID vaccinations. They also supported government efforts in contact tracing, movement tracking, and various other health security measures within Southeast Asia.

When giving his keynote, Malaysian Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin described, “One of the things that I stressed on when I came into the Ministry of Health is that the health ministries in all countries have a have duty not just to public health in the sense of hospitals and caring for people, but also the overall health of the country which includes economic activity, and people being able to freely go about their daily lives and contribute towards productivity.”

In this sense, a strong supportive community of agencies and private sector had taken it upon themselves since the start of the pandemic and lockdowns, to ensure that lives and livelihoods were balanced by funnelling the essential resources and best practices to where they could deliver this impact.

AMCHAM is a nationwide organisation and (what’s involved) is not only American companies but the ecosystem that supports American companies — they were all involved in mobilising these resources.

There are many examples of this happening in Malaysia, but this is best exemplified by activities on the Pearl of the Orient, Penang Island, where a majority of the local semiconductor and manufacturing industry is located.

Corporate Citizenship is alive and well

During a recent event when Motorola Solutions Malaysia celebrated its 50^th anniversary in Malaysia, the organisation’s tireless COVID response efforts was highlighted.

Siobhan Das, CEO of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) commended how the Corporate Citizenship Committee (CCC) which Motorola-an, Solomon Lorthu was chairman of, really helped the AMCHAM platform along the lines of how to be better corporate citizens and execute better CSR.

“Because of this CSR platform that existed even before COVID came, we had a better sense of what to do during a nationswide crisis. Responding to the COVID pandemic was natural and happened easily,” said Siobhan.

Since the pandemic began, a total of RM7.2 million worth of PPE and in-kind resources were reallocated and mobilised to communities that could immediately use them.

These procedures came in the form of a set of best practices which were contributed to MITI. These standard operating procedures (SOPs) were crucial in ensuring factory workers could continue being productive while still being safe and healthy.

Head of Motorola Solutions operations in Penang, Solomon Lorthu said, “AMCHAM is a nationwide organisation and (what’s involved) is not only American companies but the ecosystem that supports American companies — they were all involved in mobilising these resources.”

Working with the government

Motorola Solutions Malaysia worked with MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) to set up PIKAS which is the government immunisation programme for employees in the manufacturing sector. Companies in critical manufacturing sub-sectors including electrical and electronics, food processing, iron and steel, medical devices, personal protective equipment (PPE), oil and gas and rubber products were prioritised for vaccination, which is the programme’s objective.

Through research institution, CREST (Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science, and Technology), Motorola Malaysia set up their cameras in a university hospital to record the post-mortem examination of COVID-19 patients, and later analyse the whole procedure with their analytics software.

Motorola Solutions in Penang was one of the first few organisations to participate and be vaccinated under this programme.

Besides this, Motorola Solutions was appointed as a member of the Penang State COVID-19 EHS (Environment, Health and Safety) Industry Advisory Council, which was set up in October 2021 to bring state officers, industries and health and safety experts together to bring best practices and control plan procedures for the Penang state.

Collaboration in research

To ensure that manufacturing plants would stay opened and operating during the pandemic, strict procedures to ensure safety and health of workers had to be implemented.