Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry website crashes hours before ‘total lockdown’

KUALA LUMPUR, May 31 — The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affair Ministry’s official website has seemingly crashed just hours before the country goes into “total lockdown”.

After being unreachable for over an hour, the website appears to be back in operation as usual this evening, the eve of Malaysia’s return to a nationwide “total lockdown” prompted by an exponential rise in Covid-19 infections following the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays.

What caused the crash or made the portal unreachable is unclear but there is speculation that heavy traffic from applications for operating permits could be one of the reasons.

Malay Mail could not reach the ministry for an explanation at the time of writing.

It is understood that the ministry was initially responsible for issuing permits to local goods suppliers wanting to operate in the next two weeks, when a strict movement control order is in place.

A screencap of the website shows it to be back in operation as usual this evening.

Only a handful of essential services and businesses will be allowed to operate from June 1 to June 14.

The government said it needed to enforce a strict lockdown similar to the first MCO to stem the sharp surge in daily Covid-19 positive cases.

But that changed shortly after.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) issued a statement late this evening that it is back in charge as the sole coordinator for businesses to get written permission to operate from tomorrow.

The National Security Council (NSC) said new approval letters will be required for the first phase of the third movement control order (MCO) for the next two weeks.

“The NSC special meeting chaired by the YAB Prime Minister today has decided that a one-stop centre coordinated by Miti be established to issue approval letters for essential economic sectors to operate after receiving confirmation from ministries that supervise the related sector,” it said.

“In line with that, new applications for approval for travel for work have to be resubmitted through the Covid-19 Intelligent Management System (Cims) 3.0 portal coordinated by Miti and involving all ministries that supervise 17 essential services sectors that have been allowed to operate,” it concluded in the brief statement.