Former deputy tourism, arts and culture minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik has mooted that the government make use of the country's tourism industry and its 3.7 million workers in the fight against Covid-19.
He said this will especially help tourism workers, who have been heavily impacted by the pandemic.
"They can make face masks, sanitisers or work temporarily at hospitals with insufficient staff or in cleaning services especially sanitising," Bakhtiar (above) said in a statement today.
He added that hotels can also be turned into make-shift hospitals or serve as resting places for frontliners, which will indirectly save hotels and their staff from being out of work.
Bakhtiar said HRDF funds can be used to reskill the tourism workers.
The Balik Pulau MP also proposed other measures to help tourism workers, including for Socso to use its disaster funds to help those who have been out of work or forced to go on unpaid leave, and to aid the government by giving a payout of between RM100 and RM200 for those earning less than RM4,000.
He added that with the cancellation of Visit Malaysia 2020, Tourism Malaysia was also expected to save more than RM100 million meant for projects and global advertising campaigns which could now be used to help industry players.
The government had announced it would pay RM600 per month for six months to those on unpaid leave and earning less than RM4,000 per month.
There are also a number of stimulus package incentives such as allowing EPF contributors to withdraw from their second account.
Bank Negara has also announced a six-month moratorium on loans, while PTTPN loan repayments can now be deferred for six months. - Mkini
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