Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email This is indeed great news. The poor get double benefits – welfare aid from the state and also federal government. The federal government tries to woo them, while the state government tries to keep them loyal. Winner – the poor.
This may encourage the folks to continue give sweet promises to the vote seekers, and enjoy more benefits by not voting for them.
On hindsight, why do these states suddenly have lots of poor people (Oct 2008 to March 2009)? Developed State Selangor (as per Khir Toyo’s definition) is third place! So much for being developed.
There have been complaints that Welfare Department stopped depositing money into recipients accounts recently. One of the family we help mentioned it. Not sure if the money is flowing in again.
The poor in Pakatan Rakyat-led states topped the list of those receiving welfare aid from the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, said its minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen.
“We are giving more to the Opposition-led states. There is no pilih kasih (favouritism) here and this is shown in our statistics of Projek Cari, a special project launched to reach out to the poor,” said Dr Ng.
Projek Cari registered a total of 128,944 poor people nationwide applying for welfare aid but only 54,671 were approved. A total of 27,629 were rejected and 46,644 applications were still pending, she said.
Perak topped the list with 4,974 poor qualifying to receive welfare aid under Projek Cari from last October to March this year.
Second in the list was Kedah with 4,254 new cases, followed by Selangor (4,092), Kelantan (3,454), Penang (2,363), Pahang (2,281), Sabah (2,218), Johor (1,866), Negri Sembilan (1,653), Malacca (1,358), Sarawak (1,005) and Perlis (594).
Projet Cari to trace the poor nationwide would continue as the second economic stimulus package provides more funds for the ministry to pay the workers tasked with tracking down the deserving poor, Dr Ng said.
The budget allocated for welfare under the ministry had also increased from RM350mil annually to RM850mil for this year, she said.
Anyone earning below RM720 a month is classified as poor by the ministry, which would conduct a review on a yearly basis.
