KUALA LUMPUR: The Finance Ministry has so far disbursed RM8.6 billion to other ministries and agencies as part of the RM260 billion Prihatin economic stimulus.
Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said the RM8.6 billion was equivalent to 25 per cent of the total amount allocated for ministries and relevant enforcement agencies under Prihatin.
The amount also accounts for about a quarter of the government’s additional expenditure totalling RM35 billion under the RM260 billion stimulus, which is funded through a mixture of borrowings and government coffers.
Tengku Zafrul said as of April 12, over six million people had received funds and one-off payments from the stimulus.
This amounted to RM4.9 billion, benefitting 8.3 million eligible individuals identified for payments.
Tengku Zafrul said an additional 2.77 million new applications had also been received.
“Looking forward, I hope that rakyat or small and medium businesses who have yet to receive assistance from the Prihatin economic stimulus package will submit their applications as soon as possible,” he said in his speech on the Prihatin update yesterday.
Meanwhile, Tengku Zafrul said RM1.48 billion in Special Relief Fund (SRF) for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) under Bank Negara Malaysia had been approved as of April 12.
He said 2,958 SMEs had benefitted from the approved allocation.
On April 8, the central bank announced that it had allocated RM5 billion, with a financing rate of 3.5 per cent per annum and 5.5 years maximum tenure, to help manage the short-term cash flow issues faced by business owners adversely affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.
On wage subsidy, Tengku Zafrul said the government had received application from 31,000 employers for 299,000 employees, involving an estimated allocation of RM307 million.
He said out of this, 98 per cent applications were made by SMEs with 75 or less employees.
On April 6, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the wage subsidy programme had been expanded to RM13.8 billion from RM5.9 billion previously.