Micro miracle: Prihatin gives micro-traders 2nd chance

KUALA LUMPUR: Micro-business owners and hawkers who missed out on the first round of the Prihatin Special Grant are looking forward to its return next month.

Among them is Zaitun Sulaiman, who runs a fruit stall with her husband in Medan Idaman, Setapak.

“I was aware of the RM3,000 grant, but I missed the deadline to apply. I will not let this second chance slip away,” she told the New Straits Times.

She said hawkers struggled to pull through the Movement Control Order (MCO) period as they were not allowed to operate.

“Although I had to rely on my savings, I survived. Unfortunately, some businesses did not,” she said, pointing to the empty tents near her stall.

She said the tents used to house stalls that had to shut down for good as they could not weather the economic uncertainty brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rodziah Abdul Hamid, who also operates a stall in Medan Idaman, said she lost her source of income during the MCO period.

The Recovery MCO provided her with some relief as she could operate her stall again.

She said she initially felt left out as she was not aware of the government’s initiatives under the Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Package (Prihatin).

“I didn’t know the government was giving financial assistance to hawkers like myself. So I felt disappointed that I had to struggle to survive all by myself.

“Only later did I hear about the RM3,000 grant from other people,” she said, adding that she also missed the first round of Prihatin Special Grant applications in May.

Rodziah said she hoped the government would disseminate more information on the recently announced Prihatin Supplementary Initiative Package (Kita Prihatin) so that more people could reap the benefits.

On Sept 23, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that applications for the Prihatin Special Grant would reopen from Oct 1 to Oct 31 to ease the financial burden of micro entrepreneurs.

He said the government had disbursed RM1.63 billion during the first round of applications in May, which saw 545,000 micro-traders benefiting from a one-off financial assistance of RM3,000.

The government agreed to reopen applications next month after many micro-traders lamented that they were unable to apply within the stipulated time.

Muhyiddin said the second round of applications would benefit more than 200,000 micro-businesses, with an allocation of about RM600 million.

Payment is targeted to be made from Nov 25.

Source: NST