Was BR1M abused or did minister mislead?

PETALING JAYA: Bukit Gasing State Assemblyman Rajiv Rishyakaran asked the federal government to clarify the huge discrepancy in statistics released in Parliament yesterday.

Quoting Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Wahid Omar’s claim that only 28.7% or 2 million of Malaysian households earn less than RM3,000 a month, Rajiv said, “This is in stark contrast with previous information released stating that Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) has benefited 4.8 million households in Malaysia as seen on the Prime Minister’s Office website.

He cautioned that it would be wrong if Malaysians got the impression that there were only 2 million households that earned less than RM3,000 a month if the data from BR1M handouts was “anywhere near the truth”.
He insisted that Barisan Nasional come clean.

“There has either been massive abuse of the BR1M payments, or the minister misled the Parliament yesterday. Which is it?”

Rajiv said that the collection and reporting of data and statistics like these were crucial to making wise policy decisions for the country and dealing with economic incentives and programmes for the poor.

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