SMEs request for automatic six-month loan moratorium approval

 

The Small & Medium Enterprises Association (Samenta) today urged the government to extend the sixth-month loan moratorium automatically to all SMEs instead of allowing banks to deliberate on a case-by-case basis.

Samenta president William Ng (above) said this in a statement in welcoming Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's announcement of the RM150 billion National People's Well-Being and Economic Recovery Package (Pemulih) aid package, noting that it included many of their other suggestions.

"SMEs continue to have problems getting moratorium, as banks view missed payments negatively, resulting in many SMEs being told they are not eligible before they can even submit their requests formally.

"It must be made clear that it is precisely because SMEs are not able to pay that they are requesting for a loan moratorium," said Ng.

On the Wage Subsidy Programme 4.0 (WSP4.0), Ng said Samenta members welcomed the government's move to raise the maximum employees per company ceiling to 500 and removed the salary limit for entitlement.

"However, our view is that the wage subsidy should be until the end of the year, at the very least.

"The current scheme would mean even businesses that are allowed to operate since last year are getting the same subsidy as those who have been closed for most of the past one and a half year," he said.

"It would have been more meaningful if the WSP4.0 is given to all SMEs who are not allowed to operate, and for as long as they are not allowed to operate," he added.

Further, Ng urged the government to allow all sectors of the economy to reopen under strict Covid-19 prevention procedures as soon as the number of daily infections falls below 4,000.

He said this is instead of the current National Recovery Plan that listed gradual reopening according to industry, after a one-week daily average of fewer than 4,000 cases.

This was on top of two other benchmarks for national immunisation rate and ICU bed use.

"We are in this together. Please do not discriminate against businesses on the basis of essential and non-essential.

"If it is safe to reopen one sector, there is no reason why other sectors, unless they involve specific risks, are not reopened as soon as possible," said Ng, who pledged Samenta's and other retail associations’ commitment to ensuring SMEs comply with the enhanced standard operating procedures if allowed to operate as early as Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan.

"In summary, we are grateful that the government has taken heed of our plight, but there is an urgent need to fine-tune some of the proposals to reflect the reality on the ground," he said.

Pemulih is the largest aid package announced by the Perikatan Nasional government since the RM250 billion Prihatin package in March last year when the country went into a lockdown for the first time. - Mkini