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Friday 27 January 2012

BR1M






Remember Mama's previous blog entry about the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) and people will receive the financial assistance in the form of cash vouchers? The BR1M initiative is an effort under the Cost of Living National Key Results Area (NKRA) aimed to alleviate the financial burden of the middle to low-income households.

Mama has written about the distribution of the forms sometime in December 2011 and there were some funny episodes about people who came for the forms.

Anyway, the handing over of the RM500 1Malaysia People’s Assistance (BR1M) to households earning a monthly income of RM3,000 and below began nationwide last week.
Mama's school was picked as one of the distribution centres (again!) and Mama was one of the committee involved. There were criticisms about how the elderly and the physically-challenged people suffered in long queues and how the crowd became uncontrollable with long queues and such at previous distribution centres. Thus we were advised to make sure that everything went well and without any complaints from the public.
The distribution at Mama's school was yesterday, for 966 successful applicants.We were supposed to start at 2pm but when Mama reached school at 1.50pm there was already quite a crowd at the hall. The funny part is, many parents of the students were there too although they did not receive any letters or calls. They claimed the teachers told their children to inform the parents about the distribution. Hahaha, such the power of money. If we send them letters about PTA meetings or Parents' Day, only half would turn up.
As expected, there were also some elderly people who could barely walk.It was really hard for them to move around but the recipients could not be represented by others. There were long queues at all 10 counters we prepared beforehand according to their serial numbers. Luckily there was no untoward incidents and the weather was good yesterday.Besides the crowd was orderly and they queued! (and not crowding the counters in a rush)

2 comments:

  1. Any personal views on the merit and demerit of the gift of cash? I have seen how this being publicised. I am sure the total money allocated and spent is by no means a small sum. What does it mean at the end of it all? I have no political agenda - just a thought.

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    Replies
    1. Dear Al-Manar,
      Thanks for your comment.
      I was there during the distribution of the BR1M forms and I would say that many people really need the aid. Personally, I would prefer it if the government handed out vouchers (that can be exchanged for foodstuff or other necessities) instead of cash. Secondly, people with regular income (pensioners and government servants with less than 3K salary) should not be given the aid. They should learn to live within their means. Here we are more concerned about people who are jobless, people who depend on their (equally poor ) sons or daughters. We can have this 'gift of cash' as an annual affair so people will not label it as election money.

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