221 employers closed their business after receiving wage aid, Socso says

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 221 employers closed their business despite receiving assistance from the Wage Subsidy Program (WSP), according to records from the Social Security Organization (Socso).

Human Resources Minister M Saravanan said that according to the Employment Insurance System report, 2,713 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) closed between March 1 and October 30 this year.

Regarding the bankruptcy / insolvency of people due to the Covid-19 pandemic until October, he said that his ministry did not have the statistics as the matter was the responsibility of the Insolvency Department.

“However, the government has increased the minimum bankruptcy threshold from RM50,000 to RM100,000 to reduce bankruptcy cases through the Act on Temporary Measures to Reduce the Impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) 2020 (Law 829), “he said in Dewan Rakyat’s session today in response to questions from Charles Santiago (PH-Klang).

On the number of employers that received the wage subsidy assistance but did not distribute the money to their workers, Saravanan said that as of November 11, Socso had received 388 complaints filed by employees about the misuse of the WSP fund by employers. involving almost RM20 million.

Saravanan said Socso would suspend payments to employers suspected of making false claims until investigations into the complaints were completed.

“From the complaints received, Socso has identified 156 cases of false claims and misuse of the WSP fund that require action to demand back payments from the employers involved,” he said.

Meanwhile, Socso is collaborating with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and a total of five cases are still under investigation by MACC, of ​​which one arrest was made in Kedah on October 6.

“Socso has also identified 5,537 employers who breached terms and conditions, including laying off workers and failing to pay contributions to Socso,” he said, adding that these employers have been blacklisted.

For monitoring and reporting purposes, the minister said, Socso would display the list of employers who had received WSP assistance on the official Prihatin Perkeso portal for worker reference.