We oppose BR1M because it will make it harder to oust the government

By MT Webmaster Last updated May 22, 2015

So Dr Mahathir cancelled the 5% oil royalty payment to Terengganu and placed the RM1 billion a year under the Prime Minister’s Department. Then, through Idris Jusoh, Umno paid this ‘Terengganu BR1M’ directly to the voters, bypassing the state, which fell back to Umno just five years later in 2004.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Why do most of us oppose the 1 Malaysia People’s Aid or BR1M? Well, simple really, because this will make the people grateful to the government and that would mean it would be more difficult for Pakatan Rakyat to kick out and replace Barisan Nasional.

BR1M, which started in 2012, covers about 4.2 million households or about 80% of the households in Malaysia. To qualify for BR1M that household must have an earning of less than RM3,000 a month. This means the combined earnings for everyone living in that house.

Initially, when it was first started, BR1M was a one-off cash payment of RM500. Actually, a one-off payment of RM500 is not really that big an amount of money but when you are struggling to survive even a one-off payment of RM500 is god-sent.

This was eventually changed to an ongoing scheme and increased to RM650 and then to RM950. It was also changed to include households earning RM3,000-4,000 a month who would receive RM750.

The money is paid in three instalments.

There are three categories of households that can receive BR1M — married couples with dependents or children, single individuals with dependents, and senior citizens.

Of course, most of those who oppose BR1M do not fall within that category and do not really face a problem paying for their basic needs. They may have debts but this is because of over-spending on their wants and not because of their needs.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that the BR1M handouts is akin to failed socialist and communist policies that will only make people dependent on the government and reduce their competitiveness. Actually, capitalist countries like the UK also have a similar system and the benefits are even higher than what BR1M is paying.

In the past, during the time of Dr Mahathir, Malaysia had what was called ‘cost of living allowance’ or COLA. Last year, the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) wanted COLA to be reintroduced but the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) opposed the idea. (SEE THE NEWS ITEM BELOW).

In fact, they even oppose the idea for Malaysia to double the minimum wage to RM1,800 a month, which is still not enough if there is only one wage-earner in a family of five of six, more or less the normal family size for Malaysians, Malay families in particular.

Even COLA is being hotly debated with some supporting it, some opposing it, and some who have actually been implementing it since the 1990s. So you will not get 100% support for anything, whether it is COLA or BR1M.

Of course, those who support it would be those who benefit from it while those who oppose it would be those who do not benefit from it or who have to pay for it either directly or indirectly.

It is the same as the issue of the boat people. Some feel they should not be allowed into Malaysia even if they perish at sea while others feel on humanitarian grounds they should be allowed in.

The bottom line is: if you are an opposition supporter then you will oppose anything the government does even if it is a good thing because your job is to oppose the government for the sake of opposing.

One thing that many probably do not know is that when PAS took over Terengganu in 1999, they, too, implemented a scheme similar to BR1M although they did not call it BR1M.

So BR1M is not a new idea. For all intents and purposes, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak ‘stole’ the idea from PAS who started this in Terengganu in 1999. Dr Mahathir realised that with RM1 billion a year going to Terengganu and with the Terengganu version of BR1M, that will make the voters happy, which would mean Umno would never be able to retake the state.

So Dr Mahathir knows how ‘dangerous’ BR1M can be. It can make the voters grateful. Terengganu has proven it. So the only way to topple the government would be to end BR1M.

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Employers say ‘no’ to Cola

(The Star, 5 January 2014) – Employers are not in favour of giving out cost of living allowance (COLA) to workers, saying it has already been absorbed into the wage systems.

Slamming the Malaysian Trades Union Congress’ call for employees to be given COLA as ‘unjustified’, Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Shamsuddin Bardan said employers already took into account rising prices when they reviewed their salary scales every three years.

“Although COLA was introduced in the 1970s during the global economic crisis, when the economy improved a few years later, it was incorporated into the wage systems.

“Now, when we adjust our wage system every three years (in the collective bargaining agreements between employers and employees), we adjust the rate of the COLA based on the Consumer Price Index of the day,” said Shamsuddin.

The MTUC is asking for private sector employees to be given a RM300 COLA to help them tide over the recent spate of price hikes.

Shamsuddin said paying extra allowance to their employees would be a big challenge for many small and medium-sized companies struggling to cope with higher operational costs due to rising utilities costs and the minimum wage ruling that came into effect on Jan 1.

MEF represents 4,500 member companies and 18 affiliate trade associations.

The MTUC, however, claimed that many employers were not incorporating COLA or factoring in the cost of living in their wage systems.

“That is why the Government needs to regulate the COLA and make it a policy.

“The price hike has been a shock to the people’s system, especially those in the low- and middle-income group, so we hope the Government can help reduce their burden,” said MTUC president Khalid Atan.

“The increased transportation, food and schooling costs have had an immediate impact on the workers in the lower-income and middle-income groups. Many are trying to tighten their belts but how can they when they don’t even have enough to cover the basic essentials.

“It is essential for the Government to introduce the regulation on COLA because almost five million private sector workers are now on minimum wage, which is just RM30 above the poverty line of RM870 per month.”

In the interim period, he suggested that companies assisted by providing subsidised food and lodging for their workers.

“If workers are happy, not worried or stressed about their finances, they will be able to work hard and companies can increase their productivity. This will be a win-win situation.”

He pointed out that the Government provided civil servants between RM100 and RM300 as COLA depending on whether they were working in a city, town or a rural area to the civil service.

Non-officers, who form the bulk of the 1.4 million strong civil service, get RM180 for housing allowance while officers get a minimum of RM250. Government workers also get housing loans at a low interest rate.

MTUC had included a proposal for COLA in its previous demands for a minimum wage regulation to the Government. However, only a minimum wage ruling has been enforced, which puts the minimum pay for workers in peninsular Malaysia at RM900 and RM800 for those in Sabah and Sarawak.

The National Union for Bank Employees (NUBE), which is proposing a RM500 allowance, said that COLA was not impossible to manage for employers as it was already provided to workers in Sabah and Sarawak by many private companies.

“Many employees in Sabah and Sarawak, including those working in the banking sector, receive a COLA of 15%-22.5% of their basic salary. We hope employers can extend it to the workers in the peninsula, especially the banks and government-linked companies.

“We know they, especially the public listed companies, can afford it because they recorded a profit last year,” said NUBE secretary-general J. Solomon.

“The RM300 is a figure in MTUC’s original proposal for COLA in the 1990s, and our cost of living has shot up more since then,” he added.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK