KUCHING, Nov 6: Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) women chief Kho Teck Wan urges the government to have Budget 2021 focusing on creating more job opportunities as the people are losing jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
She noted the importance of ensuring the survivability of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as they provide 65 per cent employment in the entire country.
“SMEs contribute to over one-third of Malaysia’s GDPs (Gross Domestic Products), but provide 65 per cent of employment in Malaysia.
“It is therefore very important for the government to ensure the survivability and sustainability of SMEs. When SMEs fail, majority of Malaysians will lose their employment,” she explained.
Kho pointed out the development of information technology (IT) sector could also contribute to job creation.
Seeing that the IT talents in Malaysia have responded quickly to the Covid-19 pandemic by creating tracking tools for contact tracing and people notification, she believed in the potential of building more IT talents and developing the nationwide IT infrastructure.
“Our nation needs a robust network that will allow medical and banking services, as well as urgent warnings to reach the most remote part of Sarawak without the need to travel.
“These development budgets will also indirectly help job creation,” she asserted in a statement yesterday.
On a related issue, Kho expressed her wishes for the government to allocate more budget on the welfare of frontliners as they have been risking their lives while working extra hours in the war with the novel coronavirus.
She said she hoped to see not only financial assistance for the frontliners, but also assistance in terms of providing childcare facilities and more Personnel Protection Equipment (PPE) supplies.
In terms of medical, she also suggested a long-term investment on medical research and manufacturing since Malaysia is very much dependent on importing PPE and medical supplies since the Covid-19 outbreak.
“Investing in medical research and manufacturing is a long-term investment, but our country should start now so we can be self-sustainable when another pandemic hits,” she said. — DayakDaily
