Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in announcing a new RM40 billion financial aid package, revealed his ministers and deputy ministers will not be taking their salaries for three months, starting June.
Their wages will instead be channelled to the National Disaster Relief Fund for Covid-19 related expenditure.
Muhyiddin revealed this at the tail end of his televised speech, where he unveiled Pemerkasa Plus, a package to strengthen the public healthcare capacity, to aid those facing financial woes due to the total lockdown that will be implemented tomorrow, and to support continuity of businesses.
Public healthcare – RM1 billion allocation, which includes:
– RM450 million to increase beds and ICU capacities for all government hospitals, teaching hospitals and field hospitals set up by the Armed Forces.
– RM550 million to support Covid-19 related expenses by government agencies (medicines, operational costs at quarantine centres, etc).
– To extend contracts of 14,000 medical officers and nurses until next year. The government will also re-appoint 500 healthcare personnel who will retire this year.
For the people, RM2.1 billion allocated for Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat, in which:
– Those with a household income of below RM2,500 will receive RM500.
– Those with a household income of between RM2,501 and RM5,000 will receive RM300.
– Those who are not married will receive RM100 each.
The monies will be deposited into their respective accounts by the end of next month.
Those in the B40 group, who have lost their jobs, and small-medium enterprises that will not be allowed to operate during the lockdown, will have the option of choosing for an automatic moratorium of three months, or a 50 per cent reduction in loan repayments for six months.
The wage subsidy programme under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) for all affected economic sectors will be extended for one month.
For businesses
To help manage cash flow, banks will offer loans to SMEs and companies at an interest rate of 3.5 per cent.
Some 17,000 tour guides, 40,000 taxi drivers, 11,000 bus drivers, 4,000 tour bus drivers, 62,000 car rental and e-hailing drivers will receive a one-off aid of RM500 each.
There will be an extension of electricity bill discounts (10 per cent) offered to hotels, tour agencies, shopping malls, convention centres, theme parks and local airline companies for three months (July to September).