By Ranjit Singh
FINANCE Minister Tengku Datuk Zafrul Aziz said the government is using a 6R approach to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and recover from its socio-economic fallout.
The first R is the resolve to contain the virus by imposing the Movement Control Order (MCO). The second R is to build resilience by introducing the Prihatin Economic Stimulus Package to assist the rakyat and the economy.
Meanwhile, the third and the fourth R’s are to restart the economy and rehabilitate it with short and mid-term planning. The fifth R is to revitalise the economy comprehensively and the final R is to reform the structure of the economy towards the ‘new normal.’
“All these 6Rs are actually aimed at the welfare of the seventh R, which is the Rakyat,” said Zafrul.
He added that the country was at the third R currently which is regenerating the economy. There was a need to balance the importance of public health and the need to generate the economy. The government had after receiving feedback from various parties including the Ministry of Health took the decision to re-open the economy in a gradual and controlled manner.
However, he reiterated that this does not mean that business owners must re-open their businesses if they are not ready. The standard operating procedures (SOPs) that have been established act as guidelines for those who want to resume their businesses.
In the current Conditional MCO (CMCO) phase, the implementation of the Prihatin package will be continued. All the main measures of the package have been implemented, representing 95% of the RM260 bil package.
He said that in the previous week, applications for the Prihatin special grant for Micro-SMEs were opened. The government has allocated RM2.1 bil where RM3,000 will be given to each Micro-SME registered with the Inland Revenue Board, Companies Commission of Malaysia and local authorities on Dec 31, 2019.
The applications would be accepted until May 15 and the results would be announced in the first week of June, with payments to be disbursed by the end of June.
Meanwhile, applications for the Danajamin guaranteed financing scheme worth RM50 bil were accepted from May 1. For the first phase of Bantuan Prihatin Nasional (BPN) total payments of RM5.5 bil were made to 7.78 million recipients including those without bank accounts who cashed their BPN aid at Bank Simpanan Nasional branches.
From May 4, the second phase of the aid would be made in stages to 8.3 million recipients in the B40 and M40 groups, amounting to RM3.7 bil.
Zafrul added that as at April 29, nearly 2 million new applications and appeals were approved amounting to RM1.5 bil. Taking into account this latest development, it is estimated that an additional allocation of RM1 bil is needed on top of the original allocation of RM10 bil.
“The payments for the new applications and appeals would be made in mid-May,” said Zafrul.
He also said that for EPF’s i-Lestari programme, until May 3 the EPF approved 3.5 million applications totalling RM1.66 bil. The payments are being credited between May 4 and May 18.
Zafrul noted that for the reduction in EPF contribution rate from 11% to 7%, RM997 mil worth of applications were received for a month. As for the one-off payment to students of institutions of higher learning of RM200, payments were already made to one million students. The rest of the payments will be made by May 10. – May 5, 2020
