PETALING JAYA: The are desperate calls for help from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for the government to help them survive the disruption to their operations and loss in income due to the movement control order (MCO).
I have received the following messages which highlights the financial and economic catastrophe faced by the SMEs if they are not immediately bailed out by the government, DAP leader Lim Kit Siang (pix) said today.
He shared them in a statement today:
• “If the lockdown continues until 30th April then I will be forced into early retirement by closing down my factory. Reason is I can’t afford to pay salary, rental, instalment, loan and zero collection etc, etc
• “January work 17 days
• “Because of CNY
• “February work 20 days
• “March work 13 days
• “Because of lockdown
• “April 0 days
• “If lockdown continue
• “Pay 4 months’ salary
• “Only 50 days productive
• “Should I take out my savings and pay salary. I am already 57...
• “As I know a lot of SME is facing the same problem. My next door neighbour has 60 workers, 5 rented factories and some instalment paying machinery. He needs 300k every month. At 42 his 15 years of hard work is going to be wiped off if lockdown continues
• “M’sian normally give 60+ days credit. We haven’t collected the dec, Jan, Feb bills and the lockdown start. Supposing we start work in May, do you think the client can pay? This may drag till June or July before the payment comes in. How many SME can withstand until July? If the gomen doesn’t help us then we are finished
• “Nobody is going to be spared. If your children have financial problem, are you going to help? so are your siblings...
• ”No matter how solid is your house, when your neighbour on fire you will also be burnt. When you throw a stone in the middle of the pond, eventually the ripple with reached you
• “Hopefully the Government will create a Stimulus Package for SME.?
Lim said Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin should also announce an economic rescue package for SMEs and others that missed out in the economic package last Friday, which was conceived to deal with the MCO but not its extension, as well as to give top priority to public health financing.
“An economic rescue package to bail out the SMEs must be Muhyiddin’s topmost priority and most urgent imperative if Malaysia is to see through both the public health and economic challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic to successfully re-start the Malaysian economy in the post-MCO era,” he said.
