KUALA LUMPUR: The government has been urged to disclose all of its calculations on the Employment Insurance System (EIS) bill 2017 which was tabled for its first reading this week in Dewan Rakyat.
PKR's Kelana Jaya MP Wong Chen said although the bill, on the surface, seeks to help provide insurance benefit to employees who were retrenched, the details however was not fully disclosed.
"Based on my calculations, the detail of the bill indicates a severe disconnect between the contributions for the scheme and the expected insurance payouts," he told a press conference at the Parliament here today.
He claimed that the bill would cause both the employees and employers to spend more money annually than they were supposed to.
Wong also claimed that the bill might actually be an additional tax on both the employees and employers.
He explained that if the average salary of workers was RM2,000 a month, their monthly contribution would be RM24.60.
"The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) said we have 6.8 million workers who will be covered. This means the annual contribution would be RM24.60 times 12 months times 6.8 million workers, which equals to RM2 billion.
"Let's assume that the 2016 retrenchment is 50,000. Under this bill, the average proposed payout to retrenched workers can therefore be estimated at RM1,000 (half of their salary) times the maximum six months benefits times 50,000 retrenched workers per year.
"This works out to a yearly pay of only RM300 million. This is a massive 6.7 times differential of contributions to payouts," he said.
The PKR lawmaker claimed that under the new bill, workers and employers will be forced to pay RM300 a year when the government only need RM135 a year.
"In other words, workers and employers are being forced to cough up an additional RM1.1 billion a year," Wong added.
The EIS bill was tabled for the first reading in the Dewan Rakyat by Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem on Tuesday.
The novel bill is primarily aimed at helping provide financial assistance to private workers who lost their jobs until they find new employment.
Retrenched workers will also be given help to search for new jobs, career counselling and training.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had announced on May 1 that the government has agreed to provide the Social Security Organisation with RM70 million for the payment of financial benefits relating to the EIS from next year.