KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (July 1): The Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives (MEDAC) intends to implement a national insurance scheme for micro entrepreneurs and informal business operators in the B40 category. Its Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, stated that the policy would be adopted in response to concerns that most entrepreneurs do not have any kind of protection or insurance to fall back on in times of crisis, such as the Covid-19 outbreak.
“In order to deal with such a circumstance, I recommend that we establish an insurance plan, and I have discussed the method with MEDAC, but it cannot be announced at this time.”
After visiting the World Trade Center (WTC) immunization center here today, he told reporters, “Insya Allah, we will have an insurance system for small businesspeople to aid them when their enterprises are impacted or if a similar circumstance develops in the future.”
The initiative, according to Wan Junaidi, may take some time to implement, but it is intended to help almost 2.5 million micro and informal enterprises across the country, including 900,000 who are registered with the Ministry and affiliated agencies.
In another development, he stated that the Science, Technology, and Innovation Ministry has accepted MEDAC’s suggestion to include micro entrepreneurs and informal company operators in its immunization list (MOSTI).
According to him, the program mechanism has also been discussed with the Federal Territories Ministry and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
MEDAC declared last month that it is striving to guarantee that micro entrepreneurs and small-scale business owners are included as vaccine recipients since they deal directly with the public and should be considered frontline workers./n
