Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution pledges to provide additional cops to deal with floods in Johor
KLUANG, March 3 — As Johor’s flood situation continues unabated, the Home Ministry will provide additional police personnel in the state to cope with flood relief efforts.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the need to deploy additional police personnel for Johor was communicated to him by its Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi during a briefing earlier.
At present, he said that there are about 4,000 police personnel in the state that are on reserve and can be deployed at anytime.
“I have instructed the Johor police contingent to immediately deploy the reserve police personnel for mainly search and rescue operations as it is the main priority now,” he said to reporters after visiting a temporary flood relief centre at the Kampung Melayu Kluang community hall here.
Saifuddin explained that the reserve police personnel will join those from other agencies such as the People's Volunteer Corps (Rela) and the General Operations Force, making up more than 7,000 personnel in Johor.
He said that the ministry will only deploy police personnel from other state contingents if the current manpower needs are insufficient.
“This is the commitment and support from the government in supporting those that are involved in the floods,” he said.
Saifuddin also said that all of the Home Ministry’s assets have been extended towards the flood relief efforts.
He said the ministry has ordered that all four-wheel drive vehicles, trucks, boats and many more assets to be deployed for rescue operations.
“Any additional need for heavy vehicles for flood relief efforts will be discussed with Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also the national disaster management committee chairman,” he said, adding that such a request would see the assistance of the Malaysian armed forces and other security agencies.
Saifuddin also assured flood victims that the government will not charge those who have lost or damaged their personnel documents during the flood period.
He said this included personal documents such as MyKad, MyKid and passports that will be replaced for free at all relevant government departments.
Several parts of Johor were struck by floods following continuous heavy rain since Monday.
As of 12pm today, a total of 32,719 flood victims from 9,253 families in the state were placed in 218 temporary flood relief centres.
