With regards to a recent viral video on a beer factory in Shah Alam where it shows smoke or more commonly known to be steam, MITI posted on its social media page with clarifications on the difference between operating and keeping machines warm.
After the video went viral, many comments posted were curious how the non-essential categorised factory was allowed to operate despite a full MCO was announced. However, after authorities made the site check, they came back convinced that there was no operation activity and that the factory was following all the stipulated guidelines listed. Its also good to take note, that large scale industry will have to keep their million dollar investment of these machines idle on fear of jamming up or to be constantly running to function properly later on. In this case, the beer factory was just idling the machines and only had 10% of workforce, mainly technicians and operators which is permitted by the Ministry.
Meanwhile the smoke emitted was due to heating up of raw materials used in the process, this is done to avoid damage to the stocks. Upon investigation, the officers found the factory to be complying all SOP’s since MCO began and was not operating its business as alleged by some social media comments. BT spoke to an engineer, where he commented “people need to be aware that these machines are extremely sensitive and complex, they can’t be shut and restarted like car engines”.
Malaysia’s struggle in keeping daily cases low is causing much anxiety and stress among the public in recent weeks, ever since hitting a high of 9000 numbers when the FMCO was announced, they have come down to 5000 but stubbornly staying in that region.
