EVERY Monday, I try to contribute a column under the heading "Cai Jin" on The Straits Times Money pages to flag issues concerning the business and investment community.

Yesterday's column was about the credit woes faced by small and medium enterprises. I outlined the circumstances they could suddenly go belly-up because they failed to get credit backing from their bank and suppliers, even though the national numbers still looked rosy - banks not showing a reduction in lending and proportion of bad loans at a historic low levels.

Straight away, I got a response from an unhappy reader early in the morning complaining about the ineffectiveness of the extra $2.3 billion scheme announced last month to give SMEs a helping hand in getting the much-needed credit. 

Banks are simply not lending even with the government backing the loans, he wrote. They ask for 40-page documentation, a profit track record and then turn the borrower away with a one-liner that it fails to qualify. And companies cannot simply wait for next month's Budget.

The problem must be tackled now. 

Is his firm an isolated case ? I frankly don't know the answer. But in today's Business Times, SME bosses articulated more of their concerns. 

James Chua of semi-conductor firm Applied Micro Tech said while financing schemes are available, it takes time for any loan to be approved. "And SMEs like us don't have time," he said. Costs need to be cut immediately.

And there is a dire warning from another SME boss, CC Shih of Metaplas Engineering, of the consequences if many small firms land themselves in financial difficulties. 

"Given the large number of SMEs (about 124,000), layoffs of a mere two employees from eac firm will swell the country's unemployment by 250,000. SMEs like us are finding it increasingly difficult not to lay off workers," he warned. 

Well, he has a point.

As I pointed out in my column, saving jobs will be of paramount importance as the credit crisis unfolds here. But jobs will be lost if the businesses are starved of the credit needed to keep them alive. And SMEs form the backbone of our employers.  

This will make quite academic any discussion about job sharing like workers taking a pay cut and working three days or less, so that more people can stay employed, and sending foreign workers home, so that Singaporeans can keep their jobs. We have to look for ways to save the businesses first.  

But it is the attitude of some professionals that I find scary. 

I happened to talk to some of them last week when I was gathering views for my Cai Jin column. One accountant said that the Government will know how to deal with the problem. "They have a lot of feedback already, and they have so many scholars. They will know what to do. They will gather the best solutions from around the world."

Complacency or outright indifference?

I find this "Daddy will know best what to do" assumption frustrating. Yes, the Government will play a very important role in making sure that SMEs can ride out the credit crisis, but this is a problem which concerns all of us. We should play our part too to make sure that jobs are saved. 

That means giving the authorities and the national media a handle on the scale of the problem. 

And why my sudden interest in SMEs when I usually focus on stock market-related issues ?

SMEs form the bedrock of our stock market. But in the past year, many of them have found themselves reduced to sub-10 cent (penny stock) status, as retail interest melts away. 

While the benchmark Straits Times Index has halved in value this year, some small-capitalised stocks are down by 90 per cent or more. 

The SME crisis has been beeping red for some time now on the stock market radar screen. Let's swing into action before the patient ends up needing ICU treatment.