Call them the vulnerable. ‎Statistics suggest that some 20% of households in Malaysia fall into this category, where money earned can barely stretch through the month and an unexpected expense sends them into debt.

IT is hard to imagine this scenario in the land of plenty but for civil servant Jaafar* this is a daily reality: waiting for his four children to finish their dinner before satiating his hunger on leftover fish or chicken.

It is the same for council maintenance worker Kassim*, who earns RM2,700 a month. The 56-year-old father knows the drill. If fish is served, he gets the head or tail. If chicken is the main dish, he gets the neck or feet. ‎The fleshier parts are reserved for his wife and five children.

Kassim told the The Malaysian Insight that he often runs out of money five days before the end of the month.

If there is an emergency, such as when the motorcycle breaks down, all the planning for the month goes haywire. Those with better resources could dip into savings, such as Tabung Haji. The less endowed simply borrow.

These are not anecdotes. This is the life of low-level civil servants in the Klang Valley, who say that making ends meet with their wages is getting tougher by the day with the rising cost of living.

Life at the bottom was always a challenge but with prices of goods increasing 4.3% in February, the task of stretching the ringgit has become more daunting.

According to Cuepacs, the umbrella group representing public sector unions, 60% of 1.05 million civil servants earn RM3,000 or below a month.

While corruption scandals have grabbed headlines, Barisan Nasional’s inability to improve the well-being of these vulnerable households could hurt the coalition more at the next general election.

Civil servants have traditionally proved to be large a voter base for BN but there is a palpable frustration among them over the rising cost of living and their dire financial situation.

In interviews with The Malaysian Insight, six current and former lower-grade civil servants told of the daily sacrifices they had to make and how they scrounged up enough to keep the lights on.

Their stories also show how dependent the vulnerable households are on the 1Malaysia People’s Aid Scheme (BR1M) to get by.

“BR1M is just enough to help us get by. I use it to pay for my daughter’s college tuition. It’s not a luxury,” says Karim*, 63, who retired in 2014 after working more than 25 years as an office assistant in a federal ministry in Kuala Lumpur.

Karim said his frustration with having to pay for the increasing cost of medicine for his wife and him has forced him to question the BN promise to take care of civil servants.

“When the GST came out, they said medicines will not be taxed. They said seniors don’t have to pay at government clinics. But I pay every time I go,” said the Kuala Lumpur native whose wife suffers from a slipped disc.

Despite a monthly housing allowance raise to RM300 in 2015, the civil servants told The Malaysian Insight that whatever extra they took home was wiped out by the rise in the price of groceries.

The rise in food prices was pronounced after the goods and services tax’s implementation on April 1, 2015 and the slump in the ringgit, since the country is heavily reliant on food imports. In 2015, the country spent RM45.4 billion on importing vegetables, fruit and meat.

A Statistics Department report shows that the food and non-alcoholic beverages component of the consumer price index (CPI), which tracks inflation, had gone up steadily from January 2014 to October 2016. This is even when the price of petrol at the pump dipped several times during that period in tandem with world oil prices.

Buying less, eating less

Even though they have been receiving about RM1,000 in BR1M payments since 2012, Zainal*, 52, said the extra money only covered the cost of groceries.

“We spend RM300 to RM400 on groceries and yet it is still not enough to last one month,” said Zainal, who earns about RM2,300 a month as a gardener with a southern Selangor local council.

“When my salary runs out by the 25th of the month, we have to look elsewhere for money,” said the father of four school-going children.

“Thankfully, my wife earns a little extra sewing and baby-sitting. Sometimes, my working children pitch in but it’s not much.

“When I first started at the age of 19, my salary was just RM300 a month, now it’s more than RM2,000 but I still feel that I am still struggling.”

The Economic Planning Unit reported recently that the average income in Malaysia has dropped by as much as 15% from US$10,345 in 2013 to US$8,821 in 2016.

Economist Ali Salman of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), said the drop could be due to the ringgit’s depreciation, the decline in competitiveness and inconsistencies in government policies, which put off investors.

The slide in average income, said Ali, raised questions as to whether Malaysia is still able to achieve high-income nation status by 2020.

No matter how tight money was, all the interviewees said they managed to provide three square meals a day to their children.

But half of the fathers said they had to eat less to ensure that the children were fed first.

“If we’re having fish, I only eat the tail or the head,” said Kassim.

“If we’re having chicken, I only eat the neck or the feet. All the fleshier parts, I keep for my kids and wife.”

Jaafar, 46, said: “I only eat whatever that is left at the dinner table after my kids have eaten. It’s a good thing that I don’t eat much anyway.”

He has three teenagers and a child just starting kindergarten.

Fearing retirement

Except Jaafar, all who were interviewed depended on BR1M and qualified for other forms of aid, such as subsidised textbooks for their children, but they claimed that it was unevenly disbursed.

Kassim, the maintenance worker, said his Form Four daughter did not qualify for the subsidised textbook scheme this year, despite receiving it last year.

He and Zainal also said they had to pay for water each month despite living in Selangor, where the state government has provided 20 cubic metres of free water to each household since 2008.

Kassim said he and other residents of the state government quarters where they lived have brought it up to the management but nothing has been done.

Pensioner Karim, 63, pays for medical bills at government hospitals to treat his heart problems and his wife’s back pain. This despite the claims that senior citizens would get free medical treatment at government hospitals.

“On television, they said that senior citizens and pensioners do not have to pay for medicines. But I have to when we go to government hospitals,” said the former clerk.

Karim and his neighbour Rahman, 64, also a pensioner, are worried about covering the increasing cost of food, utilities and medical bills with their meagre pensions.

Three of Karim’s children have moved out and started their own careers and families, but they are struggling, too.

“When I ask for help from my kids, they give me money. But they will also ask me for money. So, in the end, it’s the same and I don’t have any extra.”

This phenomenon of growing old and poor is a real risk for the other families, given that even now they do not earn enough to save for retirement and whatever little they put aside is used up for emergencies.

“I know they say we have to save up for retirement. I try to but it is not enough. I don’t have any retirement savings,” said Zainal the gardener, who admits that he is worried when he has to retire in eight years and only has a small pension to live on.

“I just have to go on providing for my kids the best that I can now and then I’ll leave it up to fate.” – April 1, 2017.

* All the civil servants’ names were changed as they are not allowed to speak to the media without government approval.