RM600 per employee aid not enough – chamber
SANDAKAN: Sandakan Business and Entrepreneur Development Chamber (DPPUBS) has urged the Government to provide assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) just like giving aid to their employees who are not working during the Movement Control Order (MCO).
DPPUBS treasurer general Rosshilah Wagen said local SMEs had raised concerns over the Wage Subsidy Programme that should help employers to maintain employment of their workers.
“Their concern is that RM600 assistance for employers to pay their workers’ salaries for three months is not enough; employers still need to bear a lot of costs to pay the employees.
“Now the question is, how are the employers going to pay the rest of the salaries of their workers if their companies are not operating during MCO?
“Most SMEs are fully dependent on daily sales as a source of income, and the Government’s decision to extend the MCO would surely affect the employers and their businesses greatly,” she said.
Rosshilah said they were also concerned about the fate of entrepreneurs who had lost the ability to pay their workers’ salaries due to the MCO, because the Government does not encourage termination of workers, or giving them unpaid leave; the Government requires them to continue paying their workers’ salaries.
“We also wonder if we are only allowed to not pay employees’ salaries when the company is being declared bankrupt? Is it reasonable to take action against employers or issue compound to employers?
“We hope that this issue would be taken seriously because employers are also an ordinary Malaysian, and all assistance should be distributed fairly,” she contended.
This, Rosshilah said, the DPPUBS suggested that the
Government should provide non-liability assistance to the employers including allocation that they could use to cover their monthly operational cost such as employees’ salaries, rentals, and utility bills, in order to ease their burden.
“To ensure this cash allocation would reach the target group effectively, we suggest the Government imposes a requirement where SMEs must register as tax payers, so that they could report accurate cost and income annually for their businesses,” she said.
She said DPPUBS also suggested allocation assistance for SMEs to be made one-off and could be divided into different categories in accordance with the companies’ annual income.
“If a cash allocation assistance to SMEs is impossible to be implemented, then we hope the Government allows employers to let the employees take unpaid leave during MCO so that it would cut employers’ operational costs,” she added.