And the police department is only one of 11 types of frontline workers who will either need to get the jab or get tested every two weeks. But who will ensure that all teachers, taxi drivers, and tourism workers are following this regulation? It should be their employers, but again, who will make sure they are requesting the test results?
At first it seemed like the government may have bitten off more than they can chew, which is why today we asked the Minister of Home Affairs how exactly they will enforce this difficult rule.
Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"We are going to have public health inspectors from the Ministry of Health that would do regular checks at the establishments that have frontline workers. So we are talking restaurants and of course different tour operators, tour guides and all the other ministerial offices as well where we have police officers, military, doctors, nurses. So the Ministry of Health will have their public health inspectors to do these regular checks to ensure that the persons in charge of the different establishments whether it is a head of department or whether it is an entrepreneur, the owner of a restaurant they will have to account and provide the information the negative test to the public health inspectors so that we can keep a tab on it."
Reporter
"But there is only few public health inspectors for a lot of frontliners."
Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I am hoping that we will see an increase in the numbers of public health inspectors and certainly enforcement officers. That is something that we will have to put in place starting August 1st, because we are severely underman as you can see at all the health stations - long lines to get vaccinations. That is incredible to see, very encouraging for us to see and we are hoping that those numbers will go up, especially since we are now conforming there is a variant in country, we don't know which variant exactly yet, but that is news enough to get everybody out to get vaccinated."
Reporter
"Consequences for the employers of they are not holding their employees to task?"
Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I would have to check the specific regulation and the penalty, but I do know for hosting a social gathering the charge is $5,000. For the employees, I have to check, but I do know that the regulation speaks to the employee not being able to continue to work and so the employer would then have to inform the employee that they would not be working for that particular until they can come with their negative test. But I would have to see the sanction on the employer."
And what about those who say this new regulation is forcing them to take the shot and violating their rights? Well, Minister Musa explained that it's not mandatory - rather it's a choice between getting a free vaccine or getting tested.
He also clarified that this does not give employers means to fire their employees who have not taken the vaccine, but rather to disallow them from coming to work until they get tested.
