LETTER | During this period of financial and socio-economic hardship endured by the people, it’s high time the government takes immediate holistic measures to raise the living standards of average citizens, especially the B40 group.

However, one of the main, long-standing excuses given is that there are insufficient funds to finance such pro-people programmes.

To effectively overcome this, the government should take serious measures such as cracking down on all forms of corrupt practices - including bribery, cronyism, nepotism, misappropriation of funds, fraud, etc.

The government also needs to tactfully and gradually raise taxes on the T20 category in society. This must be done collectively with other Asean countries to deter the pulling out of investments and assets by the wealthy class in order to avoid paying those higher taxes.

The provision of subsidies to the T20 group, oil subsidies, for example, should also be gradually ceased. Lastly, government funds need to be prioritised towards financing pro-people projects over other types of projects.

Such measures will surely increase government revenue, which subsequently can be spent on programmes to significantly raise the living standards of average citizens.

With the raising of living standards, average citizens will then be in a stronger financial position to spend more in their daily lives, thus strengthening the local economy and businesses.

People’s support for the government will also grow. Such pro-people programmes that need to be implemented immediately are as below.

Implementing an automatic old-age pension scheme

According to a study by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute, most households in Malaysia have zero savings.

Almost 90 percent of working Malaysians earn less than RM5,000 a month, and only half of them are active contributors to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

About 80 percent of the workforce will not have enough money at retirement to sustain themselves. Also, there are many contract civil servants who are not eligible for a pension.

Besides that, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim revealed that 81 percent of EPF contributors will not have sufficient savings to live above the poverty line after they retire.

He said as of December 2022, only 19 percent of EPF contributors have reached the basic savings level based on their age to enable them to have RM240,000 in savings by the age of 55.

He added that more than half (56 percent) of those who will be able to withdraw their EPF savings fully in a year - those who are currently 54 years old - have RM50,000 or less in their retirement fund.

“RM50,000 can only provide retirement income of about RM208 a month for a period of 20 years,” he was reported as saying.

Given the severity of the average citizen’s financial situation based on these figures, the government must immediately implement a pension scheme.

This is where RM500 is paid monthly to all pensioners aged 65 years and above from the B40 and M40 category, who aren’t protected by any other form of government or private pension schemes, for the rest of their lives.

This should be done automatically without these pensioners having to apply, unlike the current Bantuan Warga Emas scheme which is only provided upon application to those who meet certain criteria and isn’t permanent.

This automatic pension scheme can effectively help raise the living standards for these groups of citizens, in addition to reducing the financial burden on their children and families.

And given that Malaysia is an ageing nation, this type of pension scheme needs to be implemented immediately to avoid poverty among seniors.

Let local councils take over and maintain low-cost flats

A policy mandating local councils throughout Malaysia to be in charge of management, as well as upkeep of low-cost flats, should be formulated and enforced immediately.

This policy will require allocation from the federal government to assist the local councils. This measure can effectively help raise the living standards of the inhabitants of these flats throughout the country.

At present, the conditions of most low-cost flats throughout the country are deplorable because the respective management committees are unable to collect enough maintenance fees to keep the premises clean, repair broken elevators, pay the electricity bills for the lighting in the common areas, etc.

As a result, many low-cost flats are unpleasant and unsafe for their occupants. This situation is especially detrimental to the children and youth who live in these flats.

With the immediate implementation of a policy mandating local councils to be in charge of management as well as upkeep of these low-cost flats, the local governments can begin to effectively address the serious issues.

This will bring much-needed improvement to the poor conditions in hundreds of such low-cost flats throughout the country.

Strengthening programmes to uplift rural poor

Programmes for the development, maintenance and upgrading of public facilities and housing for rural residents need to be strengthened and improved.

The government must strictly ensure that the deployment of funds provided by the Rural and Regional Development Ministry Development through the respective district offices to carry out such programmes are conducted responsibly and transparently.

This is to prevent corrupt practices such as pilfering, cronyism, nepotism, etc. The end products of such projects must be of good quality.

There must also be a requirement for all allocations and specifications of each of the approved projects to be displayed on an online database so that the local population can easily access and monitor to hold the parties involved accountable.

Taking care of the average citizen’s living standards should always be the top priority of any government, especially for the B40 group.

In these current times, it cannot be denied that the need to take care of the average Malaysian’s living standards is very critical.

Therefore, the government needs to take immediate holistic measures such as the above, to raise the living standards of average Malaysian citizens for the sake of the people’s long-term prosperity.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.