Assalamualaikum, YAB Datuk Patinggi,

DUBS Appreciate the efforts of the State Government to come out with the COVID-19 Exit Strategy, and we wish to participate in this in a meaningful way. PKP COVID-19 has been a traumatic business experience for many of us in DUBS. Right now is the need not just to salvage Bumiputera business, but more so to strengthen it so that we can play a meaningful role in the post COVID-19 period.

Based on China’s experience, the large enterprises are the earliest to recover after the lock-down period and the SMEs and Service sectors are the slowest.

Our members are mostly operating in the SME and Micro sectors of business and are among the worst affected. Hence they need early attention from the government during the CMCO and the Post CMO periods. The proposals we are going to put forward are based on the result of a limited survey of mainly of our members and discussions with them.

The survey was conducted for a period of about one week ending 3 May 2020, and we obtained the following findings;

1. Only 59.3% are satisfied with the assistance programs of the State and Federal Government;

2. 67.9% stated that they obtained moratorium granted by Banks and state agencies like MARA and SEDC;

3. 69% stated they did not get assistance from Special Relief Fund and Micro Credit Scheme. 13.4% of them obtained the assistance and 10.3% were not approved. The small number of applications and low successful rate is because of unsatisfactory CCRIS record and bureaucratic issues of the banks involved;

4. Only 27.6% had their application for Skim Subsidy Upah approved, the rest were rejected because being not on PERKESO list, only having part time workers or having no business licence and not operating under a company.

A copy of the DUBS survey results is attached.

Proposals

The government is requested to:

1. More banks including Sarawak state agencies should be appointed and application and approval process for Micro Credit Scheme and for the Special Relief Fund be simplified, especially to ease applications for those having financial and CCRS record problems. DUBS should be given a role to recommend applications to speed up application process.

2. give special focus and assist industry Taska, cottage industry operating at house premises and hawkers;

3. grant assistance to retrenched workers in the form of reskilling, reattachments or capital to start new business;

4. Assistance in the form of machines and equipments and capital for entrepreneurs to restart operations affected by PKP.

5. Skim Subsidi Upah PERKESO be extended beyond the initial 3 month period and the process be simplified;

6. Have more projects under CIDB licence class G1 and G2 and UPKJ licence Class F awarded by rotation to give everyone opportunity to endure Post COVID-19;

7. UPKJ licence renewals and new applications should be made more straight forward with less red tapes. Call centre should be opened during MCO period to facilitate enquiries;

8. Emphasize on Bumiputera Contractors when awarding contracts. JKR Sarawak only goes for lowest price and this denies many Bumiputera contractors of opportunities;

9. In view of the coming Hari Raya, some seasonal products from Sarawak for Malaysian Market, like Kek Lapis Sarawak, are expected to fare badly because of delivery and transportation issues. The government is requested to assist solving transportation problems from Kuching and Miri to Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu on immediate term.

DUBS Response to CMCO effective on 4 May 2020

DUBS has issued our response on Utusan Borneo a day after it was announced, and we welcomed the Federal Government decision but felt that the state government needed to study it first before implementing to suit to our local circumstances. At the same time we hoped that the State Government would not take too long to decide.

We understand that CMCO is not popular among the masses. We feel this is because most of them are now in relaxed mood after staying too long at home and, are not yet affected even when extensive retrenchment possibilities are looming in the private sector. The government servants are also the least affected, unlike the Bumiputera business sector who have to live with cash flow crisis and possibility of business failures everyday.

I have the previledge of sitting in the Economic Action Council chaired by YAB Prime Minister and, I wish to thank YAB Chief Minister for nominating me there. I can confirm that the Federal Government made the CMCO decision not on hasty basis, but after getting comprehensive data feedback from the private sector as well as from the Ministry of Health. It was based on certain formula of balancing the health issues and the need to avoid breakdown of the economy, government financing woes and crisis in the financial system.

We understand that the Malaysian economy would lose RM 146 bil or 10.3% of GDP for the period 18 March to June 2020. This will put a very severe strain on the Government financing, as well as the resulting business crisis and high rise in unemployment if CMCO is not implemented within the May/June period.

As to whether Sarawak is ready, DUBS join most in Sarawak that this should depend on the incidence of new cases in our state. There is this of flattening of the curve approach recommended by the WHO, which looks rather complicated for ordinary people to understand. This has been achieved in Malaysia’s case, and for Sarawak, we appear to be there too.

The Sarawak COVID-19 incidence in the last 13 days has been within single digit with an average of 5.4 new cases only per day. At an average death rate of 1.6% in the country, Sarawak is expected to see one death from COVID-19 in every 12 day period. This data would be more convincing with a few more observations in the next few days (bar chart on Sarawak is attached).

CONCLUSION

Based on the above as well as COVID-19 cases distribution in various divisions in Sarawak, we see no reason why CMCO cannot be implemented in the green and yellow zones immediately.

As for the red zones, the state government could make a decision to adopt it in stages starting from today, but each stage be speeded up once we are confident of the new infection case data coming in during the next few days.

During this period strict enforcement of the CMCO SOP, Including wearing of face mask and social distancing, be done to ensure high public compliance. .

DEWAN USAHAWAN BUMIPUTERA SARAWAK Date: 5 May 2020