It is rather puzzling the fury of some critics railing against the government’s Prihatin Rakyat stimulus package announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
These critics seemed particularly incensed by what they regard as “free money” the government is generously doling out to lower-income citizens to help them tide over the severe challenges, particularly economic, as the entire nation faces down Covid-19 and the month-long lockdown associated with it.
It goes without saying that given the dire situation the nation faces as a consequence of Covid-19, practically everyone (save the well-to-do) needs a helping hand. That goes for businesses as well, struggling as they do with a month-long halt to business while costs (including staff wages) stay constant.
Which is why the RM250 billion stimulus – a dramatic number that is most apt for an unprecedented peril we face as a nation – is neatly divided almost equally between aid for ordinary struggling Malaysians and that for struggling businesses.
Inevitably, there will be some hiccups in dishing out the assistance promised as we get to the nuts and bolts of actual implementation. Lack of existing data on the M40 group (a target group for the intended largesse), for example, is one. How troubled businesses are defined in order to access the workers’ wage subsidy scheme is another.
With luck, all these will in due time be clarified, refined or otherwise sorted through. Let us hope they will be done urgently as speed in disbursing the assistance will be of the essence. As further need arises, there may be re-tweaking or even additional stimulus. Almost every nation is improvising as it confronts a crisis never before experienced.
But back to the beef about the government dishing out cash to ordinary Malaysians. If ever there was a most appropriate time for public funds to be returned directly to the common people, it is now!
The economy – battered by Covid-19 directly and its many after-effects – needs a general reflationary boost. Liquidity needs to be quickly pumped into it so coffee shops, food stalls, restaurants and entertainment outlets fill up again, travel and tourism resume, shops see customers buying again and all manner of other consumer services revived so businesses can just as quickly make up for a month-long loss of sale revenue.
So helicopter money which is effectively what the government is providing has a single and well-justified aim: to jump-start general consumption and, with it, revive what may otherwise be a sluggish or even moribund economy. It is an unalloyed good thing that the government can rustle up the resources to give the economy this desperately-needed boost.
The so-called gig economy and its army of freelancers are said to now constitute a huge portion of the economy and it is such hand-outs which may prove a life-saver for all these enforced stay-at-homes.
That said, it is just as vital that jobs in private businesses and the small and medium enterprises be preserved as much as possible. A sudden spike in our unemployment lines will be a sure dampener to the overall economy, too. And this is also where I think it can get slightly more complicated.
Extend a government helping hand, of course. Which is what it is already doing through various easing measures it can command various agencies under its wing to extend. But direct cash assistance to troubled businesses apart from the temporary relief of wage subsidies?
Business people go into business knowing full well the risks and the potential huge rewards. If despite whatever extraordinary one-off assistance given out by the government now, some still and cannot make it, perhaps they do not deserve to exist after all? Others will, over time, rise to take their place.
This is a time for us to think as one aboard one mothership. We swim or sink together, guided by a single captain who, with the best of knowledge and resources at his disposal, hopefully leads us to safe harbour. In life as in business, some unfortunately will not make it through the rough seas. Survival of the fittest. It’s that stark and can be fairly brutal.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times