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KUALA LUMPUR: The government may consider consolidating its direct cash assistance to the people, particularly after the 2021 Budget, Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said.
He said the government was discussing with relevant stakeholders, including the Social Security Organization (SOCSO), on how to improve the wage subsidy program, as several aspects needed to be considered, including existing wage differences in Malaysia.
“For example, the Employment Insurance System (EIS) is for SOCSO and at the same time, the Salary Subsidy Program (Salary Subsidy 2.0) is from the government and is based on a targeted approach based on the particular sector,” he said. at the 2020 Malaysia Economic Summit on Monday.
The session was moderated by Bursa Malaysia Bhd
President Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar.
Tengku Zafrul was responding to a question about whether the government will consider steps to consolidate the direct response program to the existing crisis, especially the distribution of PENJANA, salaries, as well as a disbursement scheme in an automatic stabilizer similar to other countries.
Consolidation is expected to shorten the time between loss of income and confidence among the rakyat. At the same time, consolidation would streamline administration through a multitude of social safety nets.
The government had extended the 2.0 Wage Subsidy for another three months until December 2020 to provide much-needed support to industries to maintain their businesses and safeguard employment, as well as to help companies meet recovery challenges in the second mid-2020, especially in terms of lower projected domestic and export sales.
Under the Prihatin Complementary Initiative Package (KITA PRIHATIN), the government extended the Wage Subsidy Program 2.0 with an additional allocation of RM2.4 billion that is expected to benefit 1.3 million employees. – Bernama
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