The Perikatan Nasional government should adopt the previous administration's e-Tunai Rakyat mechanism to channel its Covid-19 cash aid, the Pakatan Harapan secretariat said today.
The leaders - PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, Amanah communications director Khalid Samad and DAP's publicity chief Tony Pua - said this was as the mechanism has been proven to reach some eight million eligible Malaysians from the lower and middle-income categories.
"Given that the e-Tunai Rakyat programme has successfully identified those with an annual income of less than RM100,000, it would be very easy for the government to identify the eligible M40 recipients and transfer the aid into their e-wallets.
"This move will directly ease the e-payment ecosystem encouraged by the government throughout this movement control order period, more so from the aspect of how contactless payments can be carried out well," they said in statement.
The leaders said their proposal would help to resolve an issue over a lack of data for eligible recipients from the M40 category - particularly those who are not qualified for the previous Bantuan Sara Hidup scheme and those who have yet to start paying income tax.
"The process of withdrawing the cash aid from the Inland Revenue Board will also pose difficulties, including to the IRB offices tasked to process the withdrawals.
"As a result, there might be delays in processing the aid," they said.
In order to facilitate the e-wallet process, the Harapan Secretariat also urged Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to appoint Khazanah Nasional, as the company had previously done so for Harapan's e-Tunai Rakyat.
Last Friday, Muhyiddin announced a RM250 billion stimulus plan that pledged a slew of relief for Malaysians affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.
The Finance Ministry had said the first half of this amount would be disbursed at the end of April - after the end of the movement control order on April 14 - while another half would come in May.
Various leaders including PKR president Anwar Ibrahim and former premier Najib Razak, however, have urged the government to expedite the aid distribution. - Mkini
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