Federation urges govt to help entertainment industry amidst Covid-19 pandemic

The Federation of Chinese Associations Sarawak is urging the government to waive licence fees and provide subsidies to the entertainment industry in order to reduce the losses faced by them during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The association’s youth section treasurer Aaron

Tay in a statement said the entertainment industry, including massage centres, bars, karaokes, restaurants and other entertainment venues, were the first ones to bear the brunt of the pandemic.

“When the Covid-19 cases gradually increased, they were the first few industries to be shut down by the government, even though these entertainment venues were not responsible for the outbreak.

“It has been more than a year since the Movement Control Order was implemented in March last year. However, the entertainment industry has only been able to operate for less than five months, but they still have to pay various fees, making them unable to make ends meet, and are running out of money at a rapid pace,” he said.

Tay explained that during the five months of operating, the business hours were intermittent.

These kinds of implementations from the government make the operating hours irregular and severely affects businesses, he added.

“Not only that, the industries would still have to pay their employees’ salaries, shop

rentals and others, and this has a huge impact on them.

“Therefore, the government should provide supplementary subsidies for these industries including exemption of licence fees, and grant employee allowances for the industry and take practical actions to help tide them over these difficult times,” he said.

Tay said that although he supports the various prevention measures implemented by the government in order to stop the spread of Covid-19, they should also consider the different problems faced by various industries and provide appropriate solutions for them to achieve a win-win situation.

At the same time, he also called on the state government to restrict all entry into Sarawak during this period, where those who want to enter the state must be quarantined in an isolation centre for 14 days first.

He also urged the Sarawak government to speed up the pace of vaccination so that the goal of achieving 70 per cent of Sarawakians being successfully vaccinated can be accomplished.