Federation views Sarawakku Sayang Special Assistance as focussed on saving jobs

KUCHING: The Sarawak Federation of Chinese Associations (SFCA) believes the Sarawakku Sayang Special Assistance (BKSS) 7.0 programme is focussed on ensuring employment.

SFCA president Datuk Richard Wee called BKSS 7.0 timely as most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the business sector have all been badly affected by the Covid 19 pandemic.

When reacting to Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg’s announcement Wednesday on the BKSS 7.0, Wee said the oneoff RM10,000 assistance would give some temporary relief financially.

He agreed that SMEs should benefit the most as the sector is the main employer of the workforce.

“Their ability to continue with the business operations will result in the workforce being employed, hence it will have an economic impact as there will less unemployment, which will result in less financial assistance by the government for the unemployed,” Wee said.

“I believe that Sarawak is the only state that is providing the direct financial aid to the SMEs and it is based on the Socso registered list, which will be automatically given out without the need to apply separately based on the tranches as announced.”

He called the Sarawak government’s move a caring one.

“We all appreciated previous financial aid packages both from federal and state but then there was not sufficient aid and focus on the SMEs,” he said.

According to him, the Sarawak government came up with BKSS 7.0 to assist this group based on feedback from the community and business federation.

“I am pleased to note that BKSS 7.0 has shown that Sarawak is willing to listen to the feedback and requests from various organisations and the community in formulating the schemes and packages so as to benefit the people as a whole.

“Overall, it is timely and welcomed. Once again, we thank the government for being a caring government which is always prepared to listen and willing to accept feedback from the people,” Wee added.

When announcing the BKSS 7.0 Wednesday, the Chief Minister said three measures worth RM800 million would be disbursed to benefit the business community in Sarawak.

This included the special one-off financial assistance of RM10,000 for active businesses in the state.