Call for loan moratorium for SMEs, wage subsidies for workers

TAWAU: A local practicing lawyer, Jhasarry Kang believes that with the recent enforcement of Movement Control Order (MCO 2.0) it will not be as bad as the first MCO last year in March 2020.

He said that there is more flexibility on more sectors of businesses compare to the first MCO when it was implemented allowing more people to work and the economy to operate as normal.

“It is just that there will be less workers compared to a normal situation and more sectors of businesses must continue to follow the SOP set up by the health ministry,” he said.

Jhasarry said he thinks that the MCO 2.0 is to curb the continued increase of Covid-19 infection cases in the country which has reached four digit figures for months. The health ministry predicted the number of infections of Covid-19 can go up to 8,000 cases some months later if the trend of infection continues to rise without any serious action like MCO.

“Therefore, I believe the public would agree with the government's effort and follow the restriction as implemented,” he said.

On the other hand, he said there is always the bad side of MCO 2.0 as he was more concerned with the ongoing continued trend of Covid-19 continuing from last year until this year.

“I am sure there are many

SME businesses that have yet to recover from the setback from last year. There are many businesses like SMEs that may no longer be able to survive for long if the trend continues until the year end or 2022. This is because businesses have to incur costs like staff, utilities, loan, rental and more debts. There is no income or more costs when business is bad. Therefore, at the end of the day, businesses may close down and workers may lose their jobs,” he said.

Jhasarry said he hopes that the government will come up with something in order to save SMEs like a loan moratorium for businesses and wage subsidies for workers if the MCO is going to continue.