By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, June 28: The federal government will provide Special Nursery Assistance amounting to RM3,000 to more than 4,400 nursery operators and 8,000 private kindergarten operators nationwide.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the government has received many requests for financial assistance given to childcare centres and kindergartens last year to be reintroduced.
“The payment for the nursery operators will be supervised by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development while the payment for the private kindergarten operators would be supervised by the Ministry of Education.
“It is hoped that with the provision of this assistance, it can be used, among others, for sanitation needs and the purchase of disinfection equipment to ensure the cleanliness and safety of children placed in care centers and kindergartens,” he said when announcing the People’s Protection and Economic Recovery Package (Pemulih) in a live telecast today.
He also said the government would extend assistance to the canteen operators in schools that were still closed.
“For this, the government has agreed to provide financial assistance of RM1,000 to all registered canteen operators,” he said.
At the same time, Muhyiddin also announced a one-off assistance worth RM3,000 to sports industry operators and sports arena operators such as gyms, bowling, futsal and others.
Muhyiddin also disclosed that the government would assist over 8,000 local arts and creative industry players such as artists, musicians, actors, theatre activists, writers and production crews who are affected by the Movement Control Order (MCO).
“The government will allocate RM100 million in the form of financing facilities and financial assistance support. These provisions include incentives for the production of works and digital content, career opportunities, skills upgrading programmes, protection contributions under Social Security Organisation (Socso) as well as the procurement of products for the purpose of production on television, radio and song creation,” he added. — DayakDaily
