KUCHING: The Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP) does not just focus on consumers but also on traders to ensure the continuity of their businesses, especially during these challenging times.
The minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi said assistance is given to traders based on two principles — reducing the cost of doing business and promoting the ease of doing business.
He explained that reducing the cost of doing business entailed waiving certain fees and payments for businesses.
“As for promoting the ease of doing business, one example is to reduce the time required to issue permits for shops that want to run cheap sales. Previously, almost one month was needed before the permit was issued, but now the permit is issued within three days,” he said.
He said this during an interview on Episode 8, Season 2 of TVS’ Twenty30 programme moderated by senior fellow of the Malaysian Council of Professors (MPN) Dr Jeniri Amir.
“If these traders have to close down, they will lose revenue and their employees will lose their jobs as well,” he said.
Nanta noted that some may question why goldsmiths were allowed to operate, seeing as gold is a non-essential item.
“It’s true, gold is not necessary, but the essential requirement is business continuity to support the lives of those who depend on business. Goldsmiths also have workers who need their salaries,” he explained.
Reflecting on the past year, he recalled that panic buying was one of the key challenges faced by his ministry during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and enforcement of the first movement control order (MCO).
He said many people were concerned about where to get supplies such as essential food items, face masks and hand sanitisers.
“Thus panic buying happened in the first one or two weeks. The ministry was focused on the problem at the time,” he said.
Arising from this, he said, were issues such as businesses trading unethically to profit from unreasonably high prices.
Fortunately, he said the ministry had 72 enforcement command centres (ECC) throughout the country detecting, monitoring and looking into cases of inflated prices, fraud or disrupted supply of goods.
“With the efficiency of this system which was in operation even before the Covid-19 pandemic, we managed to control panic buying from early on,” said Nanta.
