KUALA LUMPUR: The RM1.74bil allocation in Phase 2 of Bantuan Keluarga Malaysia (BKM) will benefit four million households, 1.2 million single senior citizens, and 3.4 million single individuals, says Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz.
He said this comes to 12.6 million individuals, which is equivalent to 60% of the current adult population of Malaysia
“Eligible recipients will start receiving the payment in stages starting Monday (June 27). To date, a total of 8.6 million BKM recipients have their application approved with households expected to receive up to RM2,600 per family in 2022,” he said in a statement.
Tengku Zafrul said that Phase 2 of the BKM had been improved with additional cash aid worth RM630mil with a total allocation of RM8bil, the highest in history.
He added that BKM was a direct cash aid initiative which was announced during Budget 2022 to assist those in need to help them recover in the post-pandemic period and to ease the burden of a high cost of living.
“BKM is the highest direct cash aid in the country's history compared to 1Malaysia People's Aid (BR1M) and Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH) programmes,” said Tengku Zafrul.
He said that by comparison, the maximum BKM rate is RM2,600 compared to BR1M (RM1,200) and BSH (RM1,480).
Tengku Zafrul added that this is an increase of 120% since the cash aid initiative was introduced, saying that there were 8.6 million BKM recipients and 4.5 million BSH recipients.
"This increase is because the eligibility limit to receive BKM has been increased from those with an income that less than RM4000 per month for BSH to less than RM5000 for BKM," he said,
Eligible recipients can check their payment status from Monday at https://bkm.hasil.gov.my
The Finance Ministry will continue to monitor external factors that can have a negative impact on the domestic economic situation to ensure the cost of living is controlled.
