Peter John Jaban
KUCHING: The government needs to come up with a better way to distribute cash aid equally and fairly, says rights activist Peter John Jaban.
He says while he welcomes government’s initiatives to provide cash assistance to the people during this Movement Control Order (MCO) period, he is concerned that not all Malaysians, especially Sarawakians in the rural and remote areas, would get their fair share.
He says from conversations that he had with indigenous communities in longhouses, many of them are in the
dark over the one-off payment that the federal government
has announced for groups such as farmers, fishermen and traders.
“Most of them have no idea even on how to apply for the one-off payment.
“From what I understand, the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) has been tasked to make the payments, but I wonder if the IRB has the names of those who are not recipients of the Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH).
“There are many in the rural and remote areas of Sarawak who are not recipients of BSH, or are also not taxpayers; therefore their names would certainly not be in the IRB list,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Peter said to apply for the one-off payment would require one to go online, which is just about impossible to do for those living in the longhouses due to lack of Internet access or telecommunication coverage.
Because of the different situation in Sarawak, he believed that the indigenous people in rural and remote parts of the state would be left out in terms of receiving the one-off payment, even though they are also Malaysians.
He said by leaving out these groups of people – heads of households and singles above 21 years old who truly deserve the aid given most of them are earning less than RM2,000 a month – the federal government and Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin would be regarded as having failed to fulfil the promise that no Malaysian would be left out.
The one-off payment under the Prihatin Package includes RM1,600 for four million households earning RM4,000 and below; RM1,000 for 1.1 million households earning RM4,000 to RM8,000, with RM500 paid in April and the balance in May; RM800 for three million single individuals aged 21 and above with income of RM2,000 or below; RM500 for 400,000 single individuals aged 21 and above with income of RM2,000 to RM4,000 in April and May; and RM200 in May for students of higher education institutions.
Peter suggested that to ensure no one in the rural and remote villages and longhouses in Sarawak would be left out, the federal government through the state government should establish a special village-level committee on disaster management to assist the registration of applicants with the IRB.
He said for those who had no savings account, the IRB might make the payment through the State Disaster Management Committee according to its list, and the committee could
then appoint the district offices to deliver the cash aid to recipients.
He also claimed that indigenous communities in Sarawak who had been deeply affected by the MCO had expressed their
frustration and disappointment over the dwindling supply of essential food items, daily necessities and cash, as well as their inability to access medical, banking and other essential services.
Peter lauded the efforts taken by the Sarawak government to deliver essential food items to the needy folk, but he also stressed that the distribution must be done fairly and that the aid would really reach the target groups.
He said essential food and goods delivered by the authorities to the community must also be based on the number of persons in each household, and that needy families with special needs ought to be given special consideration.