On 4th August, 2021, the Sarawak state government announced that it will provide a special one-off financial aid of RM10,000 to the SMEs in the state who are registered with SOCSO as of Dec 31, 2020 and NO application is required from the SMEs as such aids will be given automatically in September.

On 1st October, 2021, the state government U-turned. It imposed 3 new criteria:

1. Micro-enterprises with less than 5 active full-time employees and an annual turnover of less than RM300,000 from such aids ARE NOT QUALIFIED for the aids;

2. NO automatic grant. Eligible SMEs MUST file their applications

3. Only those companies registered and actively operating for at least the past three years are eligible. New active businesses that are established for less than 3 years are NOT ELIGIBLE

The addition of these criteria will filter out most of the businesses in the state. As reported by SME Corp and DOSM, as of December 2020, 78.4% of all SMEs in the nation are categorized as micro-enterprises.

We urge our Chief Minister to honour his announcement and give the RM10,000 aids TO ALL SMEs, including micro-enterprises, in the State and AUTOMATICALLY without the need for applications.

中文:

在今年8月4日，砂拉越州政府宣布将自动为在2020年12月31日前已与社险机构注册下并活跃的商家和企业提供一次性RM10,000的现金援助，并宣布业主不需要进行申请，且这项援助将会在今年9月开始派出。

然而，在10月1日，州政府大U转，不仅没派出第一阶段的援助金，反而做出了3个重大的改变:

1. 拥有少过5名全职员工，且一年营业额少过RM300,000的微型企业将不会受益。

2. 援助金的派发不再自动化，合格的业主也必须提交申请。

3. 只有在过去三年内就已经与社险注册且活跃的公司才合格。这三年内才刚成立的新企业均不受益。

这些新增的条件以及申请程序都只会令更多的企业无法得到他们应得的援助。根据马来西亚中小型企业机构以及大马统计局的去年的统计，我国所有的中小型企业中有78.4%的企业都为微型企业。

我们呼吁砂拉越首席部长履行他所做出的承诺，为砂拉越内所有中小型企业，包括微型企业自动提供这项RM10,000的现金援助，而无需业主再做出申请。