KUCHING, April 12: Democratic Action Party Socialist Youth (DAPSY) national chief Dr Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen is urging the government to allow students to use their ePemula cash aid for online purchases of books and necessities, as well as to accommodate students in rural areas where physical shops may lack an e-wallet payment option.
In a statement today, Dr Yii said the government should also go to the ground to help facilitate and provide support for more local businesses to adopt and transition into more cashless e-payments in order to benefit from this initiative.
“The ePemula registration has now opened for full-time students of local higher education institutions, aged between 18 and 20.
“The government has set aside RM300 million for the programme, which is expected to cater to approximately two million eligible Malaysians.
“However, the RM150 per person ePemula cash rollout announced by the government to help alleviate some of the economic burdens of the youths and student recipients has some limitations in terms of where they can use it, namely only in physical shops, by scanning merchant QR codes at shop counters,” he said.
Dr Yii went on to say that the government must also keep up with changing times and the spending avenues and platforms that young people are increasingly inclined to, even when purchasing necessities for their daily lives.
“Actually, all these issues could have been avoided if the government was more proactive and better planned and communicated the whole initiative in itself, as well as assisting physical shops, especially in rural and semi-rural areas, to adopt and accept cashless payment before such initiative was rolled out fully.
“They can help them set up and incentivise them to adapt so that they can tap into this additional revenue that the government has provided through this initiative,” he explained.
He also stated that this gives an impression that the initiative was not well thought through and was rolled out half-heartedly.
“This is why I urge the government to allow these ePemula cash handouts to be used for online transactions, and to go on the ground to assist and support more local businesses in adopting and transitioning to more cashless e-payments in order to benefit from this initiative,” he said. — DayakDaily
