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PETALING JAYA: Banks have benefited by extending loan repayment periods under the moratorium and therefore should automatically extend it for groups B40 and M40, says DAP.
The party’s general secretary, Lim Guan Eng, said this should continue until March next year, adding that it would cost RM6.4 billion.
“This will help eight million Malaysian people and businesses.
“In contrast, the extension of the targeted bank loan moratorium and bank assistance introduced after September 30 have helped only 645,000 borrowers, which is only 8% of the original number of borrowers,” it said in a statement today.
The former finance minister has been persistently insisting that the loan moratorium be extended to help those affected by the Covid-19 crisis.
He said that specific bank loan assistance had benefited only financial institutions, as it required borrowers to pay even higher interest.
“The fact is, the banking industry posted RM32 billion in profit in 2019 and despite the Covid-19 crisis in 2020, it continues to make a profit, with no losses incurred by banks.”
The former finance minister said the anticipated economic recovery from improvements in global economic growth and trade had stalled in Malaysia and was exhausted.
Guan Eng added that there was a sharp decline in Malaysia’s gross fixed capital formation (investments) by 11.6% in the third quarter of this year.
“This sharp drop is a setback for economic confidence in future growth and hurts Malaysia’s competitiveness as other Asian countries are not experiencing the same phenomenon,” he said.
Saying that the tourism industry is on “life support”, the former Finance Minister said that RM 10 billion should be awarded in financial grants to provide a lifeline to this sector.
“Malaysia received RM 54 billion less in tourism revenue during the first nine months compared to the same period last year. The tourism industry is not alone in ‘life support’, as other industries are also suffering, ”he said.
Stimulus package of RM 45 billion
In light of this, Lim said an additional RM 45 billion was needed for the 2021 budget to create new sources of economic growth and slow down layoffs, job losses and business closures.
He said the stimulus package should also focus on:
- The immediate implementation of the increase in monthly social assistance from RM 200-300 to RM 1000, including the unemployed, is expected to reach 1 million;
- Incentives to hire work for a period of two years, low [email protected] RM 500 per month to employees and RM 300 per month to employers to encourage them to hire local workers;
- Expand this plan to cover 600,000 Malaysian workers and their employers. This would also help the more than 500,000 unemployed youth; and,
- Special funds to spend on digitizing education, including the purchase of laptops to provide online learning for students who are unable to attend school.
“Malaysia’s education is in crisis this year because students attended only four months of schooling. The loss of human resource training is immeasurable.
“Malaysian students should have the option of online learning,” he added.
