SHAH ALAM, 14 FEB: A total of 7.3 million Malaysians have applied for the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M 2.0) proving that the government, led by Umno-BN has failed to increase the household income of citizens.
This is because to be eligible for the assistance, the household income of a family would have to be below RM3,000.
Shah Alam Member of Parliament, Khalid Samad said that the Federal Government should prepare a special agenda to increase household income instead of just giving them a ‘panadol’ which does not solve real issues faced by the people.
“When the BR1M 2.0 policy was implemented, it revealed that the economic situation of the people, so much so that many were eligible to receive the assistance because their household income was RM3,000 for the whole family.
“This exposes that there are many ‘poor’ people and that there is a large income gap between the rich and the poor,” Khalid said when contacted by TVSelangor.
Khalid said that these assistance programmes only temporarily help the people when in reality, prices of goods and services are continuously on the rise.
“The Central Government should concentrate on agendas to reduce the people’s cost of living and to increase the income of those who earn a lower wage.
“This is not being done by the central government, instead they would rather take the ‘panadol’ method of economic approach and actual problems faced by the people become more chronic,” he said.
Khalid added that PR remains committed in championing issues concerning the livelihood of the people by focusing on issues such as reducing petrol prices and to use state funds for the betterment of the people.
“Pakatan has a long term plan to continuously build human capital potential,” he said.
Previously, PR in the Orange Book championed the rights of the people in obtaining government assistance in the form of subsidising petrol and other essential goods apart from defending the poor, with a household income of below RM1,500 a month.
This is by targeting for the minimum household income for every family at RM4,000 in the period of five years that Pakatan Rakyat was in power.