LETTER | Is anyone bothered that SMEs aren't getting the aid they were promised?

LETTER | When it was first announced, the BSN (Bank Simpanan Nasional) “prihatin” micro-credit scheme for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sounded too good to be true.

Loans up to RM75,000 and applications were opened until December. Approval would take seven days. Newspapers including The Edge glowingly reported millions had been disbursed to small businesses.

The reality is far from the truth. Since May, one coffee shop owner told me she has not heard from BSN after applying online. This was in the early stages. Another, a small salon owner, told me he went to the regional branch to apply and was only offered RM7,000 for various silly reasons, citing turnover and so on.

Another friend applied a week before Hari Raya, and until today, one-and-a-half months later, has received no news. Calling the numbers given by BSN was a dead end, as it was either engaged or when one got through, rang indefinitely before getting cut off.

Finally, when the movement control order restrictions were eased, he went to personally inquire. An officer at BSN told him they could not do more than tell him to “wait till the end of the month”. Either he would be accepted or rejected, that’s that.

There was not even an acknowledgement of receipt from the bank so there is no way of verifying if the application ever made it to the department or was lost along the way.

When asked if they would take his new form just in case they didn’t receive the first one (which he was first told just to leave in a box at the door outside the bank, at the mercy of wind and weather), they said applications are now closed. Really? What about the Dec 31 deadline? The officer replied they had “run out of money”.

There are no news reports of this or any progress to the disbursement of the loans to help struggling companies pay off their debts, rentals, salaries and buy extra protection required by new safety standard operating procedures et cetera.

Isn't it strange that the new media is only interested in blowing the new government’s trumpet on how much it is “prihatin” and doesn’t see fit to actually see how effective it is?

And further, what is most strange is, on the form, the applicant is asked to tick “bumiputera” and “non-bumiputera”. No one in the media has asked why this is necessary. I am all for bumiputera assistance, but as far as information provided by the government goes, this is not one of those. What is the difference, and if there is none, why ask the applicant to state that?

Isn’t this a national programme to help all small companies involved in our economy? Doesn’t the money come from the Finance Ministry, and not some bumiputera fund or BSN?

And why are BSN officers (instead of the government) appearing to have the power to assess and decide who gets the loan and how much? As a Covid assistance plan, shouldn’t it be equally applied to all small companies that meet a certain set criteria? And what exactly are the criteria? No one has bothered to report this.

This is unacceptable. Firstly, it is the government’s money (i.e. the people's money), not BSN’s. Therefore, it should be available to all qualified Malaysian companies.

Secondly, so what if a company is financially poor, isn’t that the purpose of the loan in the first place, to keep them afloat and give them liquidity to survive three months of lockdown?

Thirdly, if the funds aren’t sufficient, then shouldn’t the government allocate more, seeing they appear to have miscalculated (come on, they have all the SSM records and so on)?

From the glowing promise at the start, you would think the government had confidence that its allocation would be sufficient to allow for such a long period of application for amounts “up to RM75,000”.

This leaves a lot of room for doubt on the intentions, execution and competence of the government in promising this rescue package. It shows every sign of being just a public relations exercise.

This comes on top of other complaints I have heard from small businesses that have not received their Socso employee subsidies, and a lorry driver on daily commission who got his BPN rejected because he once, out of ambition, registered a sole proprietorship that has remained dormant.

Add to that a measly two percent discount for “selected businesses” on their TNB bill as well as households that have used more than 600 kWh of power a month (it's the government policy, said TNB's customer service when asked), the glaring fact is this “prihatin” government is anything but.

I am flabbergasted that none of the media seems to have bothered to find out if people are getting the aid they are supposed to have been showered upon by the beneficent and magnanimous prime minister. In my assessment, this government is even worse than the kleptocratic former BN government.

After all, what can you expect from a non-elected marriage of convenience (in its truest and most blatant sense, by their admission) ragtag collection of the old kleptocratic regime and its newfound band of hanger-on?

It is pretty evident the only true "prihatin" leader we had in the last six months since they ousted a legally-elected government is our Health Ministry director-general.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.