JOHOR BARU: Entrepreneurs in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should be more serious when applying for loans from Koperasi Jayadiri Malaysia (Kojadi), said SME Association of Johor South founding president Teh Kee Sin.

Teh, who is also a member of the Kojadi approval committee, said the committee had to turn down about 40% of applicants in the first round of interviews because the entrepreneurs had shown a lack of knowledge or commitment.

He said that Kojadi, an investment arm of MCA to help SME entrepreneurs, was quite lenient and friendly.

But applicants should not take it that their loan application would be approved automa­tically, he said.

“It is even more appalling when some applicants just submit the four-page forms by asking some politician, a ‘Yang Berhormat’ or a ‘Datuk’, to sign the papers without enclosing the necessary documents,” he said in an interview here yesterday.

Teh said the committee also had cases where photographs of business premises submitted did not tally with what was seen when the places were inspected.

Another problem was SMEs ­hiring agents to send in applications, with some of them even posing as the business owners.

“Some of these ‘business owners’ cannot answer our queries about their business when we go for a site visit, leading us to believe that they are actually agents posing as the applicants. We usually turn down their applications,” he added.

Teh said other problems which led to a rejection was the applicant’s inability to produce a guarantor or combined guarantors with a monthly salary of RM7,000 and above, and applicants submitting incomplete documents.

“It is also apparent that some applicants were trying to get the loans to pay off their credit card bills, or house or car instalments after they failed in the CCRIS and CTOS checks by us.

“If the entrepreneurs are genuine in taking up the loans to expand their business or to use the loans as working capital, they should be sincere and submit all the required documents,” he added.

Teh said Kojadi had distributed about RM40mil in loans for the ­benefit of some 200 SMEs as of Jan 29 this year.

Young entrepreneurs and new business owners are urged to take up loans because another RM50mil has been allocated for the scheme under Budget 2016, he added.