MANY small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) recently caught for violating the full lockdown regulations had tried to dupe the authorities into believing they were involved in essential services, said industry players.

These errant companies had also violated other restrictions such as increasing their manpower and not adhering to the 1m social distance rule.

Others, however, could have misunderstood the online approval process, and, as a result, sought approval for businesses that should not be in operations during the full movement-control order, industry players said.

Senior Minister (Security) Ismail Sabri Yaakob recently announced that as of June 9, of the 268 businesses that were raided, 59 factories were ordered to close and another 75 fined for violating their approval to operate.

SME Association of Malaysia vice president Chin Chee Seong told The Malaysian Insight some manufacturers may have falsified their particulars when applying for approval from the International Trade and Industry Ministry’s new Covid-19 Intelligent Management System (CIMS 3.0).

“Many used false approvals to say they were involved in key economic services, but that was not the case,” Chin said.

“Furthermore, the existing system made it difficult for the authorities to verify the authenticity of these declarations through the application process,” Chin said.

He also said the businesses must have been caught out following exposure by whistle-blowers, adding it was most likely that insiders had alerted the authorities.

Chin said the association has not received any complaints from its members on the actions by the authorities.

“When a member complains, it is usually about being fined wrongfully, and we will assist in handling it. But, so far, our association has not received any notifications and complaints from members.”

He, however, said the complaints the association has received so far were on the slow approval process of the CIMS 3.0 system, with many complaining that their applications were still pending at the end of the first two weeks of the total lockdown.

“There are fewer complaints now,” he said, adding many civil servants were currently working from home, so the relevant applications may not be passed soon.

Common mistakes

Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia’s SME committee chairman Koong Lin Loong said most businesses that were fined or closed down by officials had either misunderstood some of the standard operating procedure or thought they could escape.

He said the common mistakes include errors in calculating the number of people at the workplace, violating the condition that the highest attendance in the factory cannot exceed 60%.

“A lot of the calculations are wrong. It may be that the company has 100 workers and 60% is 60 people. This is regardless of whether it’s in the morning or evening.

“The company cannot say ‘60 people in the morning and another 60 people in the evening’. It doesn’t work that way.”

He reminded businesses that the current limit was that the number of people working throughout the day could not exceed 60% of the company’s total workforce, (and not) 60% in each time slot.

Koong said “no more than 60% at any time” means 60% of total staff can return to the company, but 40% are to work from home.

Koong said some non-essential industries may be allowed to be in a warm idle state, allowing 10% of the staff to return to the company to work.

However, they have secretly arranged for more manpower, exceeding the limit.

“They may think that they won’t be found out, so they quietly release more people. For example, 10% of the staff will be arranged on the production line, and the other 10% will be responsible for packaging.”

He said some manufacturers also could not comply with the 1m physical distance rule and had also allowed employees to eat in the cafeteria.

He said some employers even told the extra staff at work not to check in at the workplace with the MySejahtera app. – June 19, 2021.