By Emmanuel Samarathisa
ON Saturday, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had his maiden media interview. This was a public relations exercise. He is the prime minister, so such flexing is par for the course. He needs to build rapport among Malaysians anyway, given his use of the unsavoury “backdoor” to wrest power from Pakatan Harapan. But we will leave that discussion for another day and time.
Now, in that interview, Muhyiddin said a lot of things. But I’d like to hone in on a few issues. His responses to these display how aloof and complacent he and his government have been since Malaysia went into a lockdown styled as the movement control order (MCO).
Firstly, while acknowledging that the country is losing RM2.4 bil every day due to the MCO, he added: “This is my priority … let there be no terminations or layoffs, but then again these are businesses and if they are unable to sustain much longer, what choice do they have? It is not like they can hold to their workers as in normal times. They will be without a source of income used to run their operations or to pay salaries.”
Maybe the good PM forgot to check with the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) about its latest findings on the effects of Covid-19 on the economy and Malaysians.
Though the department, in its report titled Report of Special Survey on Effects of Covid-19 on Economy and Individual (Round 1), added the caveat that the figures should be interpreted with caution as they are not considered “official statistics … it can be used to support in reflecting the current situation.” That part, reflecting, could have served Muhyiddin and his government well.
Here are a few of the report’s findings:
- The agriculture and services sectors registered the highest percentage of job losses compared to other sectors with 21.9% and 15% respectively.
- In the agriculture sector, 33% and 21.1% of workers from fishing and agriculture & plantations sub-sectors respectively had lost their jobs.
- 35.4% of employees in the food services sub-sector have lost their jobs and followed by transport & storage at 18.7%.
- More than two-thirds (71.4%) of self-employed respondents have sufficient savings for less than a month.
- 77.2% of employers and 82.7% of private employees have sufficient financial savings of up to two months.
- 69.7% of those working less than a year and 63.2% of those working between 1-3 years reported that their financial savings will run out in less than a month respectively.
- 25.4% of those working four to 10 years and 27.5 % of those working 11-20 years have sufficient savings of up to 2 months.
- The majority of the employees are unprepared if the MCO is extended except for those working in government-linked companies (GLCs) and multinational corporations (MNCs).
Prime Minister, even your own stats department is screaming bad news. People have and are losing their jobs. And in case you are unaware, some of these companies that have donated money to various Covid-19 initiatives have also taken the opportunity to cut staff salaries.
Berjaya Corporation Bhd on March 20 donated RM1 mil to your Covid-19 fund. This is the same Berjaya Corp which a few days ago announced “austerity measures” due to the pandemic. This basically means salary cuts, the percentage of which is to be based on the salary range bracket, and a reduction of fixed monthly allowances.
Sapura Energy Bhd’s chiefs Tan Sri Shahril Shamsuddin and Datuk Shahriman Shamsuddin also donated to two Covid-19 funds organised by media group The Edge. But this is the same Sapura that has initiated salary cuts across the board of 5% to 45% as well as “workforce rationalisation,” or the more crude word for that – layoffs. Sure, their defence will be that the C-suite has taken a 50% pay cut, but come on, what is 50% for a chief of whatever.
The best part: these companies that have donated are still entitled to tax deductions. No tax breaks or such perks for their unemployed or now poorer staff.
Some gallows humour here at the expense of someone’s sanity, but now we really know that a public health crisis can drag you down a notch, from your M40 dreams back into the B40 hole you desperately clawed your way up through blood, sweat and tears. But your T20 boss … he is none the poorer.
B-b-b-but, there is the wage subsidy programme, you say? Well, according to journalist Haresh Deol, after calling up Socso, he was informed that the payment advice emailed was to show that the application had been accepted. The funds, however, would only be transferred in stages, “apabila Perkeso dapat dana.”
Secondly, there’s good ol’ Makcik Kiah and Pakcik Salleh. I wonder how they are doing right now? In his speech on March 27, Muhyiddin calculated that Mak Cik Kiah and family will receive cash support and savings of RM8,664 over six months or RM1,444 per month. But by now, they’d be worrying as they eat into their savings, if they have any. There’s no revenue coming in.
Goodbye, cashflow. And when the RM1,600 reaches them in two tranches, it’ll be too little too late. The Malay Mail has some good anecdotal coverage on the plight of hawkers, cafe owners and traders. Some good pieces include “No work, no EPF savings: Some PPR folks find money drying up as country goes into extended MCO” and “Traders: Closure of PJ’s Jalan Othman wet market could affect supply of fresh produce in Shah Alam, Subang, Damansara.”
To think that Muhyiddin actually tried to get us to believe that he understood the plight of the everyday Malaysian when during that interview he mused about using Makcik Kiah and Pakcik Salleh as examples of how down-to-earth he was, including his use of the common greeting, “Apa khabar?” Oh yeah, anyone can go “Apa khabar?” behind a screen. The teleprompter won’t throw a fit.
And, since xenophobia has reared its head once again, have we even talked about the legal migrant workers here, who amount to some two million, who have no income whatsoever during this period? They are the backbone of the country’s economic engines, since most of them ply their trade in construction, plantation and services.
Didn’t the Ministry of International Trade and Industry announce yesterday that companies in selected services can resume operations as normal, you argue? Well, just like the barbershop gaffe, this edict is poorly thought through. Daycare, schools, and kindergartens are still closed due to the MCO. So where do parents send their kids too?
Maybe if they had a domestic worker to deal with their bratty bunch, that’d be great. But how many have such privileges? Heck, it’s a luxury. These things Muhyiddin, MITI minister Datuk Seri Azmin Ali and even Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Aziz will never understand since they have domestic workers to clean up after them.
And, lastly, there is that one-day Parliamentary sitting in May, leaving any chance of proper debate and also implementation of a real fiscal injection out the window. Of course Muhyiddin had something to say about this too. At the interview, he said Malaysians were sick of politics and were expecting the government to tackle issues that they were facing.
“The people do not want to talk about politics, they are sick of it. They want to know what the government, the Cabinet ministers, the administration today is doing to tackle the issues that they are facing.”
But how is he going to do that when the big fiscal fireworks have to get parliamentary approval?
Let’s face it, Muhyiddin wants to rule by fiat. Parliament is dead. And the elites will continue to sigh “Alhamdulilah,” “Hallelujah” and “Thank the Gods” while the rest of us will be left to lick our wounds and pray to the same gods to help us survive unemployment, salary cuts and, more importantly, the banks once the moratorium ends.
Best of all, those of us taxpayers will try to eke out a living while begrudgingly paying our taxes to a government that doesn’t seem to care about us. That too is par for the course these days in addition to PR exercises. – April 29, 2020
