New measures were announced by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim this morning, part of efforts to “alleviate the cost of living burden and as a gesture of appreciation and celebration for the people.” It was billed as an “extraordinary” announcement but did it live up to the hype? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Ahmed Razman Abdul Latiff, Director of Coursework Programmes at Putra Business School.
00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:15where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. Prime
00:20Minister Anwar Ibrahim made several announcements earlier this morning in a televised address,
00:25all part of his widely hyped extraordinary tribute to all Malaysians. Now among the
00:32announcements that were made was a RM100 Sara aid for all adult Malaysians to purchase groceries.
00:39The RON95 petrol prices will be lowered to RM1.99 by the end of September and September 15th has
00:46been declared an additional public holiday this year as well as toll prices of 10 highways will
00:53not be increased. Those were among the announcements made today but the question is whether or not this
01:00will help address the growing public disquiet about the rising cost of living. Well joining me on the
01:07show to discuss this further is Dr Ahmad Razman Abdul Latif who is the Director of Coursework
01:13Programs at Putra Business School. Dr Razman thank you so much for being on the show with me today.
01:17So what did you make of the Prime Minister's announcement? We had heard all the hype coming
01:24leading up to it and it was being touted as being an extraordinary announcement and a lot of people had
01:30high expectations for it. Do you think it lived up to those expectations?
01:36Well Melissa in my opinion PM's announcement goes straight to the basic addressing the most important
01:43issues at the heart of the people which is the daily cost of living and since the cost of food is
01:51rising as mentioned by him government will provide the RM100 cash assistant to every Malaysian adult
01:58and people will say okay but is that all because other expenses keep increasing so therefore in order
02:06to ensure that the people will still have enough disposable income so what the government going to do
02:14is to make sure the toll price remain the LSTB will be lower due to the restructuring of the tariff rate
02:20and RON 95 Petro also will be lower to majority of the users so if you look at the announcement seems that
02:28most of this assistant will be in effect from September onwards for four months until the end of the year
02:34and on top of that not to forget that in October there will be announcement on the 2026 budget
02:41which will cover the assistant for next year so based on this announcement it's a short-term announcement
02:48on how government can help ease out the concern of the people for this year at least.
02:58Dr. Desma, I'm so glad you brought up the budget because the timing for this was a bit curious in my opinion
03:05we are just months away from budget which is often when these types of initiatives or handouts or aid announcements
03:15are released or announced. Why do you think this came in now ahead of budget 2026? Do you think it
03:23stole a little bit of the limelight of budget in advance?
03:28Dr. Desma, I think when we look at or when we heard about series of events for the past few months
03:35not necessarily been a positive image to the government especially when talking about the judicial appointment and so on
03:43so we need a little bit of good news and the paper probably doesn't want to wait until October and benefit from it from 2026 onwards
03:55so this is something that the government wants to highlight here that they do listen, that they do act on their concern
04:04so why should we wait when we can give assistance now especially when the government already made some saving through the disser rationalization
04:16and therefore if they can benefit the rakyat now why not?
04:24so I foresee that when the assistance started to be given out in September, don't forget that some of the users will experience an increase in electricity tariff
04:39and also they will notify the T20 or the T15 and because of that some will not be happy
04:45so the October announcement of budget will also make sure everyone happy again
04:51so there will be a series of happy news, not so good news, happy news until the end of the year
04:57that's what happened actually
04:58Okay, so this is all kind of part of managing that sentiment
05:02just in terms of the actual announcements and what stood out to you amongst the announcements
05:09there was a slew of them but for you specifically, what were you paying attention to the most?
05:15and for me personally, I'm most curious about what will happen with the RON95 that was announced
05:22and the RON95 subsidy rationalization plan which will kick into gear later this year
05:26what did you make of all of the announcements that were announced but which stood out to you the most?
05:31I think there are two, like what you said, the RON95, I thought the price will remain
05:36but the fact that it goes down is a little bit of a surprise but I also will be more interested
05:42on how they ensure that the majority will be able to enjoy this price and there is no leakage
05:50goes to those who are not deserving it because at the moment, this is the main concern
05:5735% of subsidized RON95 actually goes to those who are actually not qualified for it
06:04so I think that stood out that the price goes down and the government giving assurance
06:12that all of us, majority of us will still benefit from lower price
06:16but another interesting part of the another assistant, the cash assistant, the RM100
06:21because it has an expiry date, you have to spend it from September to December and PM did mention
06:28if you are well off, you don't have to spend it so that the government can use the balance to help out the others
06:39but I can see that this is also an opportunity for the have to have the have not
06:46meaning that you can use your MyCard to buy food for your other deserving group or people
06:54so this is something I would love to see the impact, people helping out each other using this RM100 cash assistant
07:01and then we have the petrol prices that are lower and toll prices not being increased
07:12but when you think about all of these announcements, how far do you think it actually goes
07:18in addressing some of the more root causes of what's causing this cost of living crisis?
07:25do you think it will help people at the end of the day after they've spent the RM100
07:31does it actually benefit the rakyat when dealing with rising prices, food prices and rising cost of living?
07:42every little things help, people might say the price of around from RM2.05 goes to RM1.99
07:51it's just a reduction of 6 cents and it's just a RM100
07:55but what actually more important for me is the mechanism, the assistance for it
08:02has already been decided which is using the MyCard
08:06meaning that there's no stopping government to give additional future assistance to the Malaysian LDAP when it's needed
08:17because all this while the government started with I think few years back with the cash assistant through e-wallet
08:24but not everyone has the app or the smartphone but when this time when every elder already has a MyCard
08:34so it means that whenever situation arise where you know the people really need additional assistance
08:42so it's become automatic, people know how they're going to get it, how to redeem it
08:47and I think this is something that will help address the situation when it arises
08:53so at the moment every little thing is greatly appreciated
08:57okay so the method of aid distribution is also important to take note here that I hear you there
09:04can I ask you Dr Razman, how we can afford this as a country
09:10this isn't going to cost the government some amount, a big amount, a significant amount
09:15to fund all of these announcements, to fund the RM100 for every adult Malaysian
09:22can we afford it as a country, where is the money going to come from
09:26especially as the government talks a lot about you know fiscal discipline and closing or narrowing the fiscal deficit
09:34so was this a prudent use of money in your opinion?
09:39well when we heard the announcement last time by the Minister of Finance
09:46the second, the Minister of Finance that if they implemented the rationalisation of 125
09:53the estimated saving probably in the region around 8 billion upwards, 8 billion upwards
10:01so imagine if it's 8 billion annually, if a quarterly is 2 billion
10:06so if they started this in September, okay, so the estimated saving of 2 billion can be channeled
10:13to help the RM100 cash assistant because cash assistant allocation is about 2 billion
10:19so I foresee this is what they're going to do
10:21the saving from round 95 rationalisation will go straight to the cash assistant
10:27and we're talking about the other 500 million subsidy for toll price
10:32that one is already been allocated actually for the subsidies
10:40so I can see that the saving from the rationalisation of round 95 will be useful to help in this providing assistance
10:48Do you think the benchmark has been set for budget 2026?
10:53so now we've got all these announcements and expectations of the public now will probably be higher come budget 2026
11:01is this the benchmark that we are expecting?
11:05well since 2026 is not the election year, I think election year 2027
11:11so government probably will not be that too ambitious or over promised
11:18from what we have seen 2023, 2024, 2025
11:22it's always a gradual improvement on the assistance or initiative
11:29and we have seen even the reduction of new debt but the government is gradual
11:34the fiscal deficit is gradual
11:36so I don't think government will over promise things
11:40but definitely there will be a gradual improvement on yearly basis
11:45Dr. Razman, thank you so much
11:46always a pleasure talking to you
11:47Dr. Ahmad Razman Abdul Latif from the Putra Business School there
11:52and we're going to take a quick break here and consider this
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