Transparency International Malaysia President Muhammad Mohan urged the government to update the public on the status of disbursement of the various stimulus packages rolled out since early last year when the COVID-19 pandemic exploded.
The government has been rolling out various stimulus packages both for fiscal spending and non-fiscal totalling more than RM 500 Billion. For good governance and transparency and accountability the government should table this in the coming parliament sitting for debate and get the Public Accounts Committee to scrutinise these huge expenditures.
Transparency International Malaysia today released the report on “COVID-19 & Malaysian SMEs: A Study on the Effectiveness and Transparency of Government Aid”.
The research reveals that in the aid for SMEs through the PRIHATIN and PENJANA schemes, 64% of the respondents from SMEs expressed confidence in the transparency, integrity and accountability in the federal government aid process. However 52% of the SMEs acknowledged that they had diverted the PRIHATIN and PENJANA funds to sustain the business and to pay for other operational expenditures apart from the reasons allocated for.
The research also finds that while the SMEs are generally aware about the federal government aid, 65% of the respondents were not aware about the state government aid.
Among the challenges & effectiveness of the aid disbursements, as cited by SMEs, it was mentioned that procedures were not clear, criteria was too rigid and quota was too limited.
About 8% of the SMEs interviewed claimed that bribery and corruption was necessary to obtain the PENJANA & PRIHATIN assistance with the involved parties mainly from the banks, federal government, agencies and local government. The lower level of corruption could be due to the on line application method used by the government instead of direct contact between the SMEs and public officials. Thus the government should continue to encourage the public to use on line application to mitigate any risk of bribery and corruption and at the same time improve the internet connectivity throughout the nation.
Based on this study the government could look into the following areas to improve future delivery of aid to the public:
- Loosen qualifying criteria and & reduce bureaucracy
- Government should engage more with trade associations and trade unions to comprehend real and practical issues faced by SMEs on the ground.
- Subsidies and aid should be centralised and have similar processes or mechanisms to avoid confusing members of the public.
- Public communication channels such as social media and mainstream platforms should be utilised to convince the people and businesses that aid programs and assistance are consistently monitored and audited.
- The government should demonstrate greater transparency, integrity and accountability by making public how all these huge stimulus packages were disbursed and allow the opposition and the public to question the decision making and distribution process for the betterment of the nation and particularly those in need in these troubling times.
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Note to Editors: For clarification on any and all official statements from Transparency International–Malaysia (TI-M), kindly refer to its President, Dr Muhammad Mohan (mmohan@transparency.org.my)
