RM45mil is good news to homemakers

IT’S good news for homemakers with the government’s decision to allot RM45mil for the housewives’ retirement scheme under the National Database on Poverty (e-Kasih) programme.

Under Budget 2019, the government has put in place the i-Suri contribution scheme, a part of e-Kasih’s programme, encouraging husbands to contribute to their wives’ retirement fund.

For every RM5 that husbands contribute monthly into their wives’ accounts, the government will contribute RM40 a month.

As a homemaker’s pension fund, i-Suri was introduced by the government to encourage housewives, single mothers and widows to start saving independently.

Since the i-Suri programme came into effect in August, 359,065 women have registered. The second and third phase of the e-Kasih scheme will be implemented in early 2019 and early 2020, respectively.

 

 

While homemaker Marina Mustafa was happy with the move, she felt a husband’s contribution could be higher, especially for those under the e-Kasih programme.

“For me, RM5 is a minimal amount, especially with the rising cost of living.

“Hopefully, the government will look into increasing the husband’s allocation,” said Marina, 47, a mother of one.

Her husband Faiz Lee Abdullah, 52, agreed.

Food trader Maheswari Subra­maniam, 36, said any small contribution from the government was “better than nothing at all”.

“RM40 means a lot to the poor. At least, we can have RM480 in our i-Suri savings yearly.