KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 — The current unity government will focus on initiatives to eradicate poverty and the suffering of 130,000 people categorised as hard-core poor, by providing immediate assistance and taking steps to ensure they will no longer remain in that category.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, when tabling the Budget 2023 in Dewan Rakyat today, said the government will carry out the Peoples Income Initiative (IPR) programmes and therefore, RM750 has been allocated to the Ministry of Economy for the year 2023, to carry out the initiatives.
“The IPR initiative is to focus on steps that help the poor, no matter what race or religion, to increase their income potential,” he said.
Anwar, who is also the Finance Minister, said a number of new initiatives would be implemented to overcome weaknesses in the past and help improve the household earning capacity and capability of the hard-core poor.
“Among steps taken is to not provide assistance as one lump sum but rather distribute such assistance monthly and monitor if their leasing process is properly done or subsidy for education to companies that employ those under the hard-core poor category.
“Economic activities participated must be in tandem with the demand from the community and related to sectors like agriculture and food-related to ensure there is continuous demand. This programme is aimed at helping participants earn between RM2,000 to RM2,500 during the monitoring period of 24 months and after that, they would be able to generate income on their own,” he said.
— Bernama
