CITING the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the reasons, the Social Security Organisation (Socso) has admitted that there has been a “slight” delay in the second phase of its Wage Subsidy Programme (PSU 2.0) payments.
The daily spike of cases which resulted in temporary closure of its offices due to preventive measures have resulted in some delays in processing the subsidy payments on time.
Following numerous complaints from enraged employers on the delay PSU 2.0 payments, FocusM highlighted the issue to Socso on Monday.
In its response to FocusM last night, Socso said it understood that late payments can create unnecessary financial stress to businesses. It further noted that all payment disbursements to applications for the Wage Subsidy Programme have been going on as usual.
More bad news in the pipeline is that there might be further delays in the payment for the second week of December onwards due to year-end closing of accounts and reporting process.
Nevertheless, the Wage Subsidy Programme payments remain Socso’s top priority and it will resume at the soonest possible time.
This response will surely not bode well with many employers who are already outraged that the process has taken this long as it is.
Having to pay staff bonuses and year-end incentives – on top of reduced cash flow and drop in sales – this further delay will set back many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) even further.
But, that is not all.
Although SMEs might be in the “red” due to delays, they are warned to abide by the terms and conditions of the programme – or face stern action.
“Among the conditions are the employers are not allowed to retrench their employees who earn RM4,000 or less while receiving the wage subsidy,” read Socso’s feedback to FocusM.
“Besides that, employers are also prohibited to force their employees to take annual leave or reduce their salaries during the wage subsidy period and for a period of three months after.”
However, employers can reduce their employees’ working hours if both parties agreed with the arrangement.
If an employer is found to have defied the terms and conditions for Wage Subsidiary Programmes, Socso pointed out that it has the right to suspend all future payments and reclaim any money that has been paid to the employer.
On top of that, the employer may also face legal action.
Probably this is not the response already irate employers are looking for, but they have been forewarned.
As of Dec 20, Socso revealed that it has received a total of 331,950 applications from employers for PSU 1.0, involving 2,725,212 employees and a total payment of RM12.6 bil.
Since Oct 1, PSU 2.0 has received 88,969 applications from employers, involving 900,208 employees and close to a total of RM441.55 mil of payment.
By Dec 16, Selangor recorded the highest number of applications from 22,484 employers, involving 233,171 employees, followed by Kuala Lumpur with 11,847 applications from employers involving 129,028 employees.
Unsurprising, Socso also received a huge number of queries from the public on the Wage Subsidy Programme with 92,858 calls received until yesterday, excluding queries received from social media platforms. – Dec 23, 2020
