KUALA LUMPUR: Rembau parliamentarian Khairy Jamaluddin has called upon the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to reinstate the RM450 cash aid for individuals who are single.
In a Facebook post, the former Umno youth chief claimed that the issue of the government not having money should not come up as the 2019 Budget allocation stood at RM316.55 billion, a figure that is higher than Barisan Nasional's (BN) 2018 Budget allocation at RM282.25 billion.
Khairy's comments came following an announcement by the Finance Ministry today that the government would be giving out RM100 in the Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH) scheme for individuals who are not married and whose names are part of the 2018 BSH registry.
Under the BN government, cash aid, which was called Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) at the time, was at RM450 for single individuals who qualified for the handout.
The PH government had initially removed the aid for those who were not married, stating that it would prioritise families.
In the Finance Ministry's statement today, it was said that following feedback from Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the issue of cost of living, cash aid of RM100 will also be given to unmarried individuals.
"We know that the PH government is a government of experiments or a government of 'still in review', but for BR1M for the singles category, it has proven to help those in need since it was introduced in 2013.
"There is no need to waste time and resources to conduct new studies. Tan Sri Muhyiddin (Yassin), PH's deputy chairman himself would know more about this as he once chaired the Cabinet's special committee to tackle rising cost of living in 2014 when he was deputy prime minister. So I think there is no need to conduct another study on this," Khairy said.