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PETALING JAYA: DAP deputy Charles Santiago has asked for bipartisan support to turn the Universal Basic Income (UBU) into reality as proposed by Umno vice president Mohamad Hasan.
Mohamad’s idea was also welcomed by the president of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM), Dr. Michael Jeyakumar.
Santiago told the FMT: “He (Mohamad) is right to ask for a UBI. There may be bipartisan support for this and I would like to tell Mohamad that we can hold a joint press conference on this. We need an equitable society, especially in times of crisis like the present one ”.
With numerous families struggling to put food on the table since the Covid-19 pandemic and the motion control order (MCO) in March, the UBI would provide them with a certain amount of money each month to spend on essentials.
Santiago, an economist by training, said Malaysians have to acknowledge poverty among certain communities, warning that it could cause social disharmony if left unchecked.
“We have a new segment of the urban poor due to Covid-19 and OLS, which has further exacerbated income inequality,” he said.
Mohamad had said that the government should consider a temporary universal basic income policy for the low-income group in Malaysia, citing a recent report by two United Nations agencies that described how low-income households in Kuala Lumpur have been seen. disproportionately affected by Covid. -19 crisis and the MCO.
Stating that the UBI policy was “very necessary” to ensure an adequate income for all Malaysians, he said the money would be used to help them secure food and basic necessities.
Among the main findings of the report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN children’s fund, Unicef, which Mohamad cited, was that the heads of one in four households in the survey of 500 households who They lived in low-cost apartments and lost their jobs during MCO.
Median total monthly household income fell from RM1,500 in 2019 to RM1,000 in June, far less than half the government poverty line amount of RM2,208 announced last month.
Mohamad’s idea was also welcomed by Jeyakumar, who previously suggested that each family in need receive RM1,000 a month, based on certain criteria, to meet their basic needs such as food, shelter, basic services and medical care.
“We cannot commit to these (essentials),” he said, adding that the government could seek low-interest loans from Bank Negara Malaysia to finance the program.
“The UBI would help the lower part of society (and) once you put money there, it will go back into the local economy.
“For too long we have considered poverty a problem of the poor. People say that they are lazy, that they have no education or that they are not trained, but we are not analyzing the systematic factors that generate poverty, ”he said.
The idea is also gaining traction globally, as Germany started a test RBU last week and Finland carried out a successful two-year experiment in 2018.
The UN also raised the idea in June, and the UN Development Program (UNDP) called for nearly three billion of the world’s poorest people to receive a temporary basic income due to the Covid-19 pandemic that it paralyzes world trade and leaves tens of millions of people unemployed.
Claiming that measures to protect vulnerable populations are “urgently needed”, UNDP said the $ 199 billion a month funding would provide 2.7 billion people with a temporary basic income and the “means to buy food and pay for food. health and education expenses “.
