Cash handouts for lower-income households, students

By Clara Chooi

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 — Putrajaya today offered one-off cash handouts to low-income households and all primary and secondary school students nationwide, promising the move would reduce the impact of rising costs on Malaysians.
An estimated 1.3 million students in all private and local higher learning institutions here will also receive book vouchers worth RM200, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in his Budget 2012 speech today.

In the household cash assistance programme, the prime minister said the government will disburse RM500 to each household drawing monthly incomes below RM3,000.
He said the programme would cost the government an estimated RM1.8 billion and reach some 3.4 million Malaysians or 53 per cent of households in the country.
“This unprecedented measure reflects the government’s commitment to reduce the impact of the increasing cost of living on the low-income group,” he said in Parliament this evening.
To receive the handout, said Najib, the head of each eligible household must first register with the Inland Revenue Board, which has been entrusted with the responsibility to carry out the programme.
The cash, he added, will be distributed via banks and post offices.
In the schooling assistance programme, Najib said RM100 will be distributed to all primary and secondary students from Year One to Form Five but stressed that the handout is targeted to reach the low- and middle-income groups.
“Families who can afford may opt not to receive it,” he said.
Najib said the measure would benefit 5.3 million students and involve an allocation of RM530 million.
The prime minister had earlier pledged that Budget 2012 would address the woes of the poor, acknowledging that the surge in living costs and inflation had badly impacted the group.
source : The Malaysian Insider