The human resources ministry said that as at Nov 7, Socso had received 4,423 complaints from workers that their employers had abused the wage subsidy given by the government.
“From the 4,423 complaints received, 3,661 were found to be baseless while Socso has issued a notice to refund the money in the remaining 762 cases,” it said in a written parliamentary reply to Fahmi Fadzil (PH-Lembah Pantai) yesterday.
The ministry said it had also sought help from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to investigate some of these cases.
Homeowners’ scheme
The housing and local government ministry said the Home Ownership Campaign (HOC) had attracted 67,576 house buyers from June 2020 until Aug 31 this year, with an actual sales value of RM52.3 billion. The sales value after discount amounted to RM43.5 billion.
In a written reply to Cha Kee Chin (PH-Rasah), the ministry said the total amount of discounts given to house buyers was RM8.78 billion, with each buyer receiving an average discount of 16.8%.
These buyers were also exempted from paying the 1% stamp duty, resulting in a reduction of RM400 million to RM500 million in revenue for the government.
“However, through this campaign, the government was able to address the problem of unsold houses and increase home ownership,” it said.
The HOC has been running since Jan 1, 2019, except for a short break in 2020. It helps developers sell their units, especially those that are not bought up.
The programme includes waivers on stamp duty on the sale and purchase agreement and transfers.
Pneumococcal vaccines for babies and children
The health ministry said it administered 85,351 pneumococcal vaccination doses for babies and children last year under the national pneumococcal immunisation programme.
It said that during the first nine months of this year, it administered 461,163 shots as first doses, 454,992 as second doses and 157,481 as booster doses.
In a written reply to Dr Kelvin Yii (PH-Bandar Kuching), the ministry also noted the reduction in the number of invasive pneumococcal cases among five-year-old children.
It said it had finalised the procurement of pneumococcal vaccines for two years – from Oct 16, 2020, to Oct 15, 2022 – with a total contract value of RM145.57 million.
A total of RM102,122,500 had been allocated for the procurement of pneumococcal vaccines for the programme for the 2020-2021 period.
The national immunisation programme started on Dec 1 last year.