Topple the government if no EPF withdrawals and moratorium on loans, says Umno’s Puad

(FMT) – An Umno Supreme Council member has urged Barisan Nasional to withdraw its support for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin if he does not honour his 2021 budget promises.

In a Facebook post, Puad Zarkashi said BN had previously stated that it would only support the budget under two conditions — the extension of the bank loan moratorium until June 30 next year and allowing people a one-off withdrawal of up to RM10,000 from their EPF Account 1.

“The promises to simplify the EPF i-Sinar scheme and the automatic moratorium extension have not been fulfilled,” he said, adding that there were also certain banks which were reluctant to provide the loan extension facility.

Previously, EPF announced that only certain qualified people would be allowed to make withdrawals under i-Sinar, including workers who have not contributed to EPF for at least two months and those who had suffered a minimum 30% reduction in their basic salary from March.

The second category of members whose total income has been reduced by at least 30% from March have to show supporting documents to verify this.

Puad said Najib Razak who is the BN backbencher chief had urged Putrajaya not to set any conditions for the scheme, saying some of the requirements were illogical and made things more difficult for the people.

Najib said if the government continues to delay the promises, BN would take action.

“Just withdraw support for Muhyiddin as prime minister. While it may look like a kamikaze mission, it is for the sake of people,” Puad added.