Subsidised items in the market are targeted for low-income groups to help ease their burden, and the Ministry of Domestic Trade & Cost of Living aims to keep things that way.
Soon, only people who are really qualified for subsidised items can purchase them. In her Facebook post, the Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade & Cost of Living, Fuziah Salleh responded to the lack of supply of subsidised oil in the market recently and came up with a way to identify those who can really purchase the ingredient.
Special ID?
In her FB post, Fuziah made it clear who can really get the subsidised cooking oil – B40, M40, and micro business owners. As of now, the government prepares a number of 60 million packs of subsidised cooking oil for Malaysians but here’s the issue.
“We’ve received complaints about the frequent shortages of subsidised cooking oil at the markets. They always run out quickly,” Fuziah said.
She highlighted that it’s necessary to identify who’s really eligible for subsidised oil because those who are doing well and earning more than the low-income groups are also grabbing the subsidised items in the market. At the time of writing, the government is considering introducing special identification cards to those really deserving of purchasing subsidised cooking oil.
Why not IC or MySejahtera for verification?
According to Fuziah, this is because the needs of every family are different from micro-entrepreneurs.
âIf we were to limit the purchase between 3kg and 5kg (per sale), this would affect entrepreneurs.”
She added that those in the top 20 income group (T20) are not eligible to receive cooking oil subsidies, and explained the need for a different ID card for them.
At the end of her FB post, Fuziah told Malaysians that the mechanisms are still in the works but list of recipients of the subsidised cooking oil has been finalised.
In July, Fuziah initially revealed the government’s plans to implement this method of purchasing cooking oil packages for specific target groups starting next year.
Regardless, do you think special IDs to identify eligible recipients sounds like a good idea?
