Govt told of employers abusing Wage Subsidy Programme

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has been informed that there are employers who did not channel the money provided under the Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Package’s (Prihatin) Wage Subsidy Programme to their workers, hence violating the conditions set.

Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz said the aid should not have been abused and employers should have been more responsible instead of exploiting and mistreating their workers.

“I would like to remind employers that the government will take action against such employers,” he said when presenting the 10th progress report on the implementation of the Prihatin and National Economic Recovery Plan (Penjana) packages on his Facebook page yesterday.

The Wage Subsidy Programme was introduced under the Prihatin package to assist employers in retaining their workers.

Under the programme, the government provided a salary of RM600 per month to every employee for three months (for up to 200 workers per company).

It was oriented towards workers who earn less than RM4,000 and employers who had experienced a decline of over 50% in their income since Jan 1, 2020.

In unveiling Penjana earlier this month, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that the programme, initially scheduled to last for three months, would be extended for another three months.

As of June 19, RM4.89bil had been approved for 303,596 employers under the Wage Subsidy Programme, which would benefit more than 2.4 million workers, Tengku Zafrul said.

“I would like to remind again that with the Wage Subsidy Programme being continued under Penjana, the enhanced programme is open to applications by employers from June 15,” he added. — Bernama