Small business wage subsidy program falls short of goal to provide assistance to 3.4M workers

The government's Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) program fell short of achieving its target to provide assistance to 3.4 million workers in the formal sector, data reported by the Social Security System (SSS) Wednesday revealed.

According to SSS president and chief executive officer Aurora Ignacio, only 91% of the target 3.4 million employees were able to receive the assistance.
 
"Ang target natin ay 3.4 million employees, pero nakapagbigay tayo ng almost 91% of the 3.4 million of employees at naibigay ito in April and June in two tranches," she said during the Laging Handa virtual briefing.

She was referring to the SBWS program which aims to provide 3.4 million workers in the formal sector P5,000 to P8,000 in assistance, depending on the minimum wage level in the area.

The workers are employed by some 1.4 million businesses that were either forced to shut down or can only operate on limited capacity due to the quarantines imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

In May, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said over 525,000 or 52.66% of MSMEs in the country had to stop operations due to the lockdowns imposed to prevent the spread of the virus. 

Micro enterprises are defined as those with total assets worth less than P50,000; cottage enterprises with assets worth P50,001 to P500,000; small with P500,001 to P5 million; and medium from over P5 million to P20 million. 

The government allotted P51 billion for the SBWS program, but Ignacio said some P5 billion has been remitted back to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).

"Sa binigay po sa atin ng gobyerno na pera para dito sa subsidy na ito na naghahalaga ng P50 billion plus, ay binalik po natin sa Bureau of [the] Treasury ang kabuuang P5 billion para gamitin naman para sa ibang programa ng small businesses," she said.

The SBWS interagency task force is chaired by the DOF, represented by Assistant Secretary Antonio Joselito "Tony" Lambino II. He is joined by Social Security System (SSS) president and chief executive officer Aurora Ignacio and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) deputy commissioner Arnel Guballa as members.

Data released by the Department of Finance (DOF) showed that as of June 24, a total of 41,386 employees under the first tranche and 56,978 employees for the second tranche have not claimed their subsidies.

The government has set a June 28 deadline for the claims, after which the unclaimed subsidies were forfeited and reverted back to the government coffers.—AOL, GMA News