KUALA LUMPUR – The Special Covid-19 Aid will start providing financial help from August onwards to the hardcore poor, B40 and M40 income groups.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the aid under the Pemulih stimulus package will be distributed to hardcore poor households in stages starting with RM500 in August, RM500 (November) and RM300 (December).
As for singles in the same category, each will receive RM200 in August and RM300 in November.
Each B40 household will receive RM500 in August and RM300 in December while bachelors in the same category will each get RM200 in August.
For each M40 household, they will receive RM250, while unmarried people in the same category will get RM100, with both payouts set for August as well.
“This is expected to benefit more than 11 million households, senior citizens and singles, costing RM4.6 billion.”
In October, RM500 will be channelled to those who have lost their source of income based on Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Social Security Organisation (Socso) data this year, estimated to reach one million affected people.
“The government will widen its job search allowance to include non-Socso contributors, especially fresh graduates, school-leavers and workers in the non-formal sector. They can register with MYFutureJobs and stand to receive at least RM300.
“Each parliamentarian, including in the opposition, stands to receive a RM300,000 allocation to run their food basket programmes. Another RM10 million will be allocated for food basket programmes for the Orang Asli community.”
He said Putrajaya will continue to subsidise fuel prices this year for RON95, diesel and liquid petroleum gas, at a cost of more than RM6 billion.
“The government will institute price controls for 1kg-5kg cooking oil based on the threshold price for crude palm oil. Under this programme, a 5kg bottle of cooking oil will not be priced more than RM30.
“To ensure the supply of subsidised cooking oil sold in 1kg polybags, the government will allocate RM1 billion so consumers can buy them at RM2.50 each.”
On mental health, the government will allocate RM15 million to NGOs to help address mental health, the homeless and other social problems at the community level.
Malaysians will also see a discount between of 5%-40% in electricity bills according to usage.
Malaysians will also see a discount of between 5%-40% in electricity bills for three months from July onwards according to usage.
“A discount of 40% will be given to users below 200kWh per month and 15% discount for users between 201 and 300kWh per month. As for affected economic sectors, such as hotel management, theme parks, convention centres, malls and tourism offices, a 10% discount on electricity bills will be extended from October to December.”
It is expected that the discounts for domestic and commercial users will amount to RM1 billion.
Meanwhile, telecommunication companies have agreed to provide 1GB free internet data daily until December 31, benefiting 44 million users in the country.
The government will also allocate RM125 million via HRD Corp for “place and train” initiatives under the Janapreneur programme targeted at fresh graduates.
He said the initiative is expected to help 30,000 people to get training while MDEC via its eRezeki and GLOW programmes to help more than 20,000 to find work in the gig economy. – The Vibes, June 28, 2021
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