GE15: Traders hope for more Chinese-elected reps to resolve issues of the people

SHAH ALAM - The coming election will determine a new government that will assist the people in riding out the storms after Covid-19 pandemic, says Malaysia Hawkers and Petty Traders Association president Tan Meng Lee.

He said the organisation looked forward to a government that was able to provide fair measures regardless of ethnicity and not implement unfavourable policies to traders.

“Good policies for traders such as incentives, mortgage facility or subsidies to assist traders in their business would be helpful,” he said in an interview recently.

Besides the trouble due to Covid-19, Tan said the traders were also affected by the political turmoil in which the daily issues are being neglected.

This, he said, has caused the people to feel extremely tired of the political drama among the politicians of different political parties as they feel insecure.

“The new government would need to look into how to revive hope for the traders,” he said.

Tan also said traders were able to earn good money in the 80s and 90s.

“However, things have changed since the year 2000 with uncertainties and new challenges,” he said.

He hoped that the new government would continue to offer favourable criteria for the traders as increasing the tax rate or implementing stringent enforcement would only burden the lower and middle-income groups.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Hawkers and Petty Traders Association executive advisor Datuk Lee Teong Chwee said in a multi-racial society, a dominant political party was not suitable as it would lead to power imbalance.

He opined that the ideal situation would be an even distribution of power in politics so that the welfare of the people was taken care of.

“A worrying trend for hawkers and traders is that more sites are mushrooming as market places which are only catered for Malays while the non-Malay hawkers lose out,” he said.

Lee further said that Malaysians of all races should enjoy equal opportunities and compete in the free market for everyone to have more opportunities and share different products regardless of any coalition becoming the government.

Commenting further, he said the traders would love to see more Chinese-elected representatives in the political arena of the country, whether they were in the ruling government or the opposition.

“These elected representatives would be able to speak on behalf of the people and effectively resolve issues for the people.

“The association has a total of 60 affiliates in the country.

“On average, each affiliate has about 600 members and the total number of members exceeds 30,000.

“On the other hand, at least 500,000 of petty traders are non-members.

"The government should take good care of traders,’’ he said.

Lee said he was glad that the governments in the past had provided aids for petty traders such as micro-financing for traders of all races and allocated RM70 million for Chinese traders to assist them during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He further added that the financing to the traders was still ongoing.