Over half of pandemic aid disbursed in Malaysia

Finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz outlined the percentage of the disbursement against the original allocations made for each stimulus package in a written reply to Pulai MP Salahuddin Ayub. 

The minister said an overall RM249.98 billion (US$59.65 billion) has been channeled to the public to date, benefitting over 20 million Malaysians and 2.4 million businesses. 

For the 2020 Prihatin and Prihatin SME packages, 65% of the RM260 billion (US$62 billion) allocation has been paid out. 

In addition, the Penjana package, worth RM35 billion (US$8.35 billion), saw 57% of the allocation spent on 3.7 million people and 153,600 businesses, while 95% of the RM10-billion (US$2.39-billion) Kita Prihatin package was disbursed – the highest proportion of any of the aid packages to date. 

For this year’s stimulus packages, 67.4% of the RM10.11 billion (US$2.41 billion) set aside for the Permai package had been distributed. 

The Pemerkasa package saw only 17.3% of its RM20 billion (US$3.77 billion) allocation paid out, while the subsequent Pemerkasa+ package had 85.1% of its RM40 billion (US$9.55 billion) allocation disbursed. 

READ: Malaysia to roll out RM500 million support for SMEs

The most recent Pemulih package, worth RM150 billion (US$35.80 billion), saw 3.45% or RM5.18 billion (US$1.24 billion) of its total allocation channelled to around 10 million people, according to Free Malaysia Today.