Stimulus packages help B40 families tide through rough times

 

Cash handouts from the Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat programme and food aid from non-governmental organisations have helped those from the B40 group get by during the pandemic.

PETALING JAYA: The past year has been a turbulent one for housewife Noraisah Mohd Yusof, whose family of five has had to cope with the financial ups and downs brought about by the pandemic.

Her family in Desa Mentari is part of the B40 low-income group, and they depend on her husband, who works as a security guard.

“It hasn’t been easy. My husband is a guard for a private school but now that all schools are closed, he doesn’t get paid,” the mother of three told FMT.

However, cash handouts from the Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat (BPR) programme and food aid from non-governmental organisations have helped them get by.

“I got a total of RM1,200 in the last round (of handouts) and that helped to pay the bills,” she said, adding that utility bills take up a big portion of monthly expenses now that the family stays at home every day.

Noraisah added that she intends to apply for the Jaringan Prihatin internet aid programme soon, as one of her children is in college and could do with better internet data service.

James Raj, a poverty researcher and member of an all party parliamentary group on sustainable development goals, said female heads of households in urban areas were most affected by the pandemic.

While this group was already vulnerable to loss of income and jobs, as many of them worked with small- and medium-sized enterprises, Raj said the virus has further exacerbated their problems.

He said the various initiatives from Putrajaya such as cash aids and the Prihatin special grant had helped to cover some of the immediate effects of the sluggish economy.

‘We can see that the assistance introduced by the government did well. Direct cash transfers based on differing income levels have provided short-term relief,” he said.

Although the government was putting continuous effort to engage and assist the B40 community, Raj said it remained a challenge with the ongoing health crisis.

In the long-term, he said the country should revamp the social welfare system to provide better coverage, insurance and healthcare for the B40 and disabled persons.

He also said the Jaringan Prihatin programme was a good effort at providing better connectivity and communications facilities for students, but added that educators must seek to create innovative learning content to keep students engaged.

The programme, aimed at helping B40 families gain access to internet data services or mobile devices, involves telecommunication companies providing free data worth RM1.5 billion.

An additional RM2.1 billion for financial aid was also recently allocated under the BPR scheme in the latest Pemerkasa Plus economic stimulus package. At the same time, the government had decided to provide Prihatin special grants of RM1,000 to more than one million micro traders to sustain their businesses. - FMT