The first payment for the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) is expected to be disbursed to its recipients on Saturday February 18, 2017

BR1M's payment to be distributed from Feb 18

NST

KUALA LUMPUR: The first payment for the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) is expected to be disbursed to its recipients on Saturday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced today.

“Insyaallah, beginning February 18, the first payment for BR1M will be disbursed to those who have applied and are qualified to receive it,” he said in his blog posting.

Najib said that BR1M was among the main delivery mechanisms of targeted subsidised aid used to replace the bulk subsidy system, which was less efficient and had a lot of leakages.

He said for this year, the government received 8,277,391 applications for BR1M, and from that number, a total of 5,153,238 applications have been approved so far, and the recipients will receive the BR1M payment beginning February 18 in stages.

“The remaining 3,123,950 applications are now being processed and the decision on the approval is expected to be announced next month,” he said.

Najib said in terms of age, the group with the highest approvals were aged between 21 and 30, and those 61 and above.

A total of 2,782,799 applicants will receive RM1,200; 243,434 to receive RM900 and the remaining 2,127,005 are qualified for RM450 aid.

By state, Najib said Selangor had the highest approvals with 666,316 applications approved, with Sabah and Sarawak also achieving high approval numbers of 477,482 and 537,588, respectively.

“In our efforts to give aid to the people, the Opposition has belittled BR1M by saying that it is ‘animal feed’ (dedak), an attempt to fish for votes and bribery.

“The Opposition should be more sensitive, as the recipients of this aid use it to buy daily necessities, among others.

“Don’t use offensive language, don’t confuse them and don’t demean them just for political gains. BR1M should not be politicised,” he added.