KUALA LUMPUR (April 30): The government has approved a total RM14 billion under the two wage subsidy programmes (WSP) it announced to help the private sector face the effects of the pandemic, according to the Finance Ministry’s 51st LAKSANA report.
A total of 322,177 employers and 2.64 million employees have benefited from the first WSP or WSP 1.0 under PRIHATIN and PENJANA, with a total of RM12.87 billion in subsidies approved, Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said in the report that provides updates on the implementation status of the initiatives under the two stimulus packages.
As for WSP 2.0 under the KITA PRIHATIN package, a total of RM1.15 billion has been channeled to 73,210 employers and 631,801 employees.
He also said 132,403 people have managed to find employment under the Recruitment and Training Assistance Incentive Programme, with employment coming mostly from the manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade sectors.
In terms of assistance to SMEs, the PENJANA Micro Credit Financing initiative under Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) has channeled RM421.1 million in financing to the benefit of 12,662 micro SMEs, including those in the retail and services segments.
The PENJANA tourism sector financing initiative has approved 321 applications as at April 16, disbursing some RM63.9 million in funds.
Besides that, the PENJANA SME Financing initiative, targeted to assist SMEs that have never received financing from banks, saw the approval of 7,424 applications with RM1.39 billion in financing granted.
For frontliners, a total of RM656.57 million in special allowances have been channeled based on 1.87 million claims, compared with RM647.33 million and 1.82 million claims in the previous week.
For the arts and culture sector, some RM3.01 million has been disbursed to 469 recipients, up from RM2.43 million last week.
