Business is bad, just get money from government!

What a place to do business this land of ours! If you are unprofitable and decides to close down, you get compensation up to RM300,000. What's more, such compensation are footed by taxpayers! Check this AFP news:

17/05: Proton wants to pay off dealers

(AP) -- Malaysia's ailing national carmaker Proton has asked the government for more money to pay off unprofitable dealers who have agreed to close shop, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Proton intends to double the "relief assistance" for dealers that chose to close down and asked the government for an extra 16 million ringgit, the New Straits Times said quoting unidentified sources.

The company will now pay 300,000 ringgit after many of the dealers said the earlier offer of 150,000 ringgit wasn't enough, the Times said.

(for full article, click here)

This asking unprofitable dealers to close shop to reduce the number of Proton dealers is akin to a VSS - voluntary separation scheme. But usually the compensation in such a scheme for the staff (in this case the dealer) comes from the coffer of the company. However, in Proton's case, they're actually asking money from the government (i.e. taxpayers' money!) to provide "relief" to the unprofitable dealers.

I can understand if Proton wants to downsize its dealer network to consolidate and have a better focus on improving the fewer dealers. But if they claim the dealers which they want to close are already unprofitable, why would they not be allowed to die a natural death? Instead, what is propping them up all this while, enabling to decide to close only upon getting "relief" compensation? What was the arrangement between Proton and these dealers when they come aboard? Was there some kind of dealership termination clauses which provide compensation? Is a similar approach being taken by the other car distributors with respect to its dealers?

Readers who have information on this perhaps could enlighten us more.