Moratorium: Tunggu Jumaat ini - Abd Rahim
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November 4, 2020 11:20 MYT
KUALA LUMPUR: Keputusan sama ada kerajaan akan melanjutkan pelaksanaan moratorium atau tidak akan diketahui Jumaat ini.
Demikian kata Timbalan Menteri Kewangan I, Datuk Abd Rahim Bakri.
"Pada Jumaat ini kita ada pembentangan Belanjawan 2021, jadi untuk mengetahui sama ada inisiatif itu dilaksanakan kena tunggu Jumaat ini," katanya ketika menjawab soalan tambahan Datuk Salim Sharif (BN-Jempol) di Dewan Rakyat pada Rabu.
Dalam pada itu, Abd Rahim (Bersatu - Kudat) ketika menjawab soalan tambahan Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub (PH - Pulai) berhubung pemberian projek runding terus melalui Pakej Rangsangan Ekonomi yang diumumkan ketika pandemik COVID-19 memberitahu, beliau tidak mempunyai sebagai maklumat mengenai perkara itu.
"Dalam pakej yang dilaksanakan itu, saya tidak ada maklumat adakah ia diberi secara runding terus," ujarnya.
Dalam perkembangan lain, beliau berkata kerajaan menjangkakan unjuran Keluaran Dalam Negara Kasar (KDNK) akan berkembang sebanyak 5.5 peratus sehingga 5.8 peratus pada tahun 2021.
Putrajaya urged to target aid to single mothers, disabled
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November 4, 2020 9:45 AM
PETALING JAYA: Putrajaya has been urged to provide additional forms of social protection to single mothers and disabled persons in low-income areas following a study showing they are the slowest to recover from the movement control order (MCO) because many of them cannot get government aid.
According to a recent Unicef report, income in general was inching towards 2019 levels in the areas the agency surveyed but women and the disabled were still making far less money than they used to.
The two groups were also the most likely to be without any kind of savings, the report said.
A spokesman for the All Women’s Action Society (AWAM) told FMT single mothers in low-income areas faced unique challenges that the government needed to address.
“We encounter many women who have been left by their husbands,” she said. “However, they are still legally married.”
She noted that the government recognised only divorced and widowed women as single mothers and called for less rigidity in determining eligibility for aid.
Read more: Putrajaya urged to target aid to single mothers, disabled
5 small steps to saving big on your light bill
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November 3, 2020 8:00 AM
With the various Movement Control Orders that have been in place since March, Malaysians are spending a lot of time at home, which means electricity consumption has gone up as well.
Here are some tips to control electricity usage and keep those TNB bills down.
1. Natural lighting
Why pay for electric light when you can use natural light for free during the daytime?
Open up the curtains and switch off the lights, especially if it is sunny outside.
If you are blinded by the bright sunlight hang a sheer curtain to reduce the glare and heat.
2. Take shorter showers
A long, relaxing hot shower is nice, but it also increases the electricity bill. Your water bill will be up there too.
Using a water heater can be high in energy consumption, so the longer the shower, the higher the power bill.
LETTER | Cashless society: Is it possible for everyone?
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3 Oktober 2020 l 12.05pm
LETTER | There is no escaping our evolution into a cashless society. The notion that all transactions can be executed digitally is becoming more realistic day by day.
Covid-19 has accelerated the move away from physical cash, with growing concerns over transmittal of viruses and diseases.
A cashless society breeds a new era for financial transactions. Key benefits should include: lower crime rates, less money laundering, easier foreign transacting and reduced risks and costs.
The term, cashless society, itself appears ubiquitous and denotes a concept so pervasive and entrenched in our society. However, this is far from reality.
Economic inequality and inclusivity are fundamental issues still present worldwide. A cashless society might actually exacerbate these problems. The unbanked and poor could face significant challenges with digital modes of payment.
According to the World Bank, there are over 1.7 billion unbanked adults globally. China, Indonesia and India account for over 30 percent of this number, with the majority of these being females.
In fact, a huge proportion of the unbanked view the cashless movement as a discriminatory act against those without bank accounts. Perhaps, ideologically, we are running before walking to facilitate this cashless utopia.
Read more: LETTER | Cashless society: Is it possible for everyone?
LETTER | Empowering consumers through financial literacy
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3 Nov 2020, 5:25 pm
Since 2011, when Fomca strongly felt that financial literacy should be given priority on the national agenda, it declared October as the Financial Literacy Month, whereby at least during this month, every consumer should evaluate his financial health as well as take measures to enhance his financial planning and management capabilities.
The data on the financial behaviour of Malaysian consumers are worrying. Incomes are low. Six million workers in urban areas earn below the living wage as proposed by Bank Negara Malaysia which it defines as the minimum wage that consumers need to live a minimum acceptable standard of living.
Savings are low. It was reported that 88 percent of Malaysian households reported zero savings while 62 percent of consumers reported that they have not saved enough.
Household debts are high. In 2019, household debt to gross domestic product (GDP) was 82.7 percent. A high household debt often means that households are vulnerable to financial shocks. At the micro-level, 47 percent of Malaysian consumers are classified as excessively over-indebted, that is their debt payments are more than 30 percent of their income.
Further, a study on young workers reported that 37 percent were spending more than they earn. Thus Malaysian consumers were having low incomes, low savings and high debts.
Read more: LETTER | Empowering consumers through financial literacy
Household debt under pressure
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Monday, 02 Nov 2020
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s household debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, which is the second highest in Asia, is expected to rise and be at the 88% to 90% range by year-end in anticipation of the country’s economic contraction.
The ratio denotes total household borrowings as a proportion of the size of the economy measured by the GDP, which is the total value of goods and services produced in the economy in a year.
Despite the slower growth in debt, the household debt-to-GDP ratio rose above its previous peak of 86.9% in 2015 to 87.5% as of June 2020, which was mainly due to the sharp contraction in nominal GDP in the second quarter.
Malaysia’s household debt to GDP is among the highest in Asia and has exceeded those of several high-income nations, including the United States and Japan.
The country’s household debt to GDP last year stood at 82.7% against 82% in 2018. It peaked at 86.9% in 2015.
The GDP in the second quarter saw a contraction of 17.1% year-on-year, which was the worst since the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.
FOMCA minta Prihatin diteruskan
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2 November 2020
SHAH ALAM - Gabungan Persatuan-Persatuan Pengguna Malaysia (FOMCA) meminta kerajaan meneruskan Pakej Rangsangan Ekonomi Prihatin Rakyat (Prihatin) dalam pelan Belanjawan 2021 yang akan dibentangkan pada 6 November ini.
Timbalan Presidennya, Mohd Yusof Abdul Rahman berkata, kesinambungan bantuan Prihatin amat penting bagi membantu rakyat yang berdepan pelbagai masalah akibat penularan koronavirus (Covid-19).
“Wabak ini dijangka sehingga tahun depan. Jadi, bantuan kepada golongan terjejas perlu diteruskan seperti melanjutkan tempoh moratorium dan pemberian e-dompet,” katanya ketika dihubungi Sinar Harian semalam.
Dalam pada itu, Mohd Yusof turut meminta kerajaan memberi perhatian kepada peniaga bagi memastikan kelangsungan ekonomi negara.
Menurutnya, kerajaan ketika ini berdepan pelbagai tuntutan mendesak dalam mengagihkan perbelanjaannya seperti usaha memenuhi keperluan sektor kesihatan yang sedang menangani penularan Covid-19.
Selangor to amend laws for harsher punishment of river polluters
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October 30, 2020 6:34 PM
SHAH ALAM: The Selangor government said it will amend state laws to enhance the penalty for those who pollute the sources of water, including rivers.
Menteri Besar (MB) Amirudin Shari, in tabling the 2021 state budget, said these amendments would involve the Lembaga Urus Air Selangor (LUAS) Enactment 1999.
LUAS is the state agency tasked with managing water resources and state rivers.
“The frequent water pollution at both Sungai Selangor and Sungai Langat caused the water treatment plants to be shut down, thus cutting off water supply to residents.
“We will take several other measures, besides amending the LUAS enactment, such as using the ‘bioremediation’ for river conservation as well as the raw water treatment system method.”
He said the “bioremediation” method was a pilot project in Selangor.
Read more: Selangor to amend laws for harsher punishment of river polluters
Dire situation for low-income families, worse for female-led households, says Unicef
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October 30, 2020 11:36 AM
PETALING JAYA: Unicef has found that while low-income families are beginning to show some signs of financial recovery, the situation still remains bleak, with households headed by women and the disabled seeing slower improvement.
Unicef said this in its latest report called “Families on the Edge”, which is based on a survey of 3,000 residents of low-cost housing flats in the Klang Valley.
While it found that overall median household income in poorer communities had slowly approached near-2019 levels, families with a female or disabled head of household (HoH) still had 9% and 24% less income respectively compared with last year.
This is largely down to the large number of respondents who reported a drop in income between May and September, with two thirds of female HoHs reporting they were still making less, and half the disabled HoHs saying the same.
More than 40% of the households surveyed reported total monthly income under RM2,000, an improvement over the 54% of households recorded in May, which indicates that household performance is improving.
Read more: Dire situation for low-income families, worse for female-led households, says Unicef
It's more income, not financial literacy that the poor need
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30 Oktober 2020
There are a lot of terrible things on Twitter, myself included, but one particularly irksome thing is personal finance Twitter.
As someone who's actually been poor, it's obvious to me that the advice given by these personal finance gurus are from people who've never actually experienced true poverty.
The recently announced financial literacy month, aimed to "empower the people with financial knowledge and skills" to quote a Bernama piece seemed rather tone-deaf during a time when people have lost their jobs and livelihoods through no fault of their own.
It's a problem — this belief among many of the rich and upper middle class that the poor are just poor because they make terrible decisions with their money.
Recently a Tory MP was pilloried on Twitter for defending his decision to vote against providing free meals for school children.
He said that if a parent had no money to feed their children, then why not sell the family pearls or mobile phones?
Read more: It's more income, not financial literacy that the poor need
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