Patron Zubair Motiwala and President Suleman Chawla, SITE Association of Industry has said that the draft of Sindh COVID-19 Emergency Relief Ordinance prepared by Sindh Government is not acceptable.
They urged Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah to take industrial community into confidence prior to finalizing any such ordinance. Patron and President pointed out that the ordinance will make it lawfully binding upon the employers in the province not to lay off or terminate the services of any of their employees during the shutdown of their business units due to the lockdown. The employees will be considered as being on paid leave and the draft ordinance ensures payment of salaries to such employees who would remain on paid leave during the closure of their offices.
“Industrial community is not willing to expel their workforce but they have been facing severe liquidity crunch due to suspension of business activities and finding it really hard to bear salaries payable for the idle workers when no revenue is being generated hence, the government will have come forward to share the burden.”
They said that industrial community is already providing cash and food to the needy Karachiites on humanitarian grounds, somehow sustained the entire burden of wages and salaries payable for the month of March but they will not be able to do so in coming months.
Suleman Chawla commenting on the scheme introduced by SBP on 10th April, 2020 to avoid layoff of workers, SITE Association suggest following: Credit Guarantee: In these uncertain times, banks will not entertain fresh disbursement requests especially from SMEs who do not have additional collateral to offer to secure the loan. The way out of this predicament is to push SBP to offer 100% credit guarantee against this scheme otherwise disbursement will be dismally low. Wage support by Government: All over the world, cost has been borne by governments by reimbursing up to 80% payroll cost.
We urge government to burden at least 66.66% of the labour cost in the shape of repayment of this loan. As loan disbursements will be verified by banks, level of compliance will be high ensuring that funds have reached the intended audience.
