PUTRAJAYA MAY 31: The Ministers and Deputy Ministers under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government have agreed not to take their salary for three months starting 1st June 2021 as it will be contributed to the Disaster Trust Account to help expedite the national COVID-19 expenses.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin, said, this has been practised in Movement Control Oder (MCO)1.0 that was implemented last year as a show of support from the Cabinet towards the fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
“To achieve the aim, the government will prioritise the whole-of government and whole-of society approach to fight the pandemic. This is with reference to optimise the whole health working efforts and the roles of front liners who have played their parts on the ground together with the people to break the chain of COVID-19,” Muhyiddin said.
The Prime Minister said this in a special deliberation on the “Strategic empowerment of the people and additional economy programme” or PEMERKASA Plus that was live telecasted via TV1 this evening.
Muhyiddin said, the PEMERKASA Plus is a new government’s initiative to lessen the challenges following the implementation of the recent MCO 3.0.
According to Muhyiddin, PEMERKASA Plus is worth RM40 billion besides a direct government physical injection of RM5 billion and is based on three main aims namely to increase the capacity of public health, to continue the Prihatin Rakyat Agenda and to support the continuity of businesses.
Regarding the public health services, Muhyiddin said, the government has added the provision to RM1 billion to increase its capacity with RM450 million to increase the equipment of Intensive Care Units (ICU) for COVID-19 treatment and RM550 million to support the needs of expenses of several agencies including medicines, reagent for screenings and the appointments of contract officers and the operational costs of Quarantine Centres and PKRC in MAEPS and the extension of services involving 14,000 medical officers and contractual nurses and to reappoint on contract 500 health staffs who have retired compulsorily this year.
The Prime Minister said. the government has allocated RM2.1 billion as an addition to the Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat Programme or BPR. For the household with the income below RM2, 500 will receive and additional of RM500 and those with the income between RM2, 501 until RM5,000 will receive RM300. However the single category will receive RM100.
On the morotarium aspect, Muhyiddin said, those under category B40 and the people who are affected for losing jobs or micro industries and small medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) that are not allowed to operate throughout MCO , they are given a choice to get the moratorium approved automatically for three months or to get a lesser payment of 50 percent instalments for six months.
“This initiative will be implemented in June and will benefit five million recipients valued at RM30 billion,” Muhyiddin added.
The Prime Minister also announced that the government will continue to help the continuation of business and one of the initiatives is to help manage the cash flow of the SMEs through Geran Khas Prihatin (GKP). The GKP is now worth RM1, 500 after an addition of RM500.
“With this aid, almost one million SMEs and micro industries will receive RM1, 000 in mid- June and additional RM500 will be paid in July 2021,” Muhyiddin said.
Amongst others in the initiative, the government has agreed to extend the exemption of sales tax on passenger vehicles complete knocked down (CKD) and complete built up (CBU) imports that was announced under PENJANA initiative effective 1st July until 31st December 2021. – Malaysia World News
