THE high unemployment rate among the youth may have been the reason why the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government refused to implement Undi18 by the promised date of July 2021, said Lim Guan Eng.

In a statement, the DAP secretary-general said Putrajaya may feel afraid of losing the election due to the fact that they have failed to provide job opportunities for the younger generation.

“Is the high youth unemployment of 13.9% in February 2021, the reason why the PN government refuses to implement its promise to allow the voting age to be reduced from 21 to 18 (Undi18) by July 2021, in time for the next general elections expected in early 2022,” asked Guan Eng.

“The failure to create jobs, especially for youths, must have demotivated the government (from implementing) Undi18 by the promised date of July 2021, and (allowing) the Election Commission (EC) to defer it to after September 2022.”

“By that time, those between 18 to 20 will not be able to vote and thus unable to pressure the government to seriously commit to creating more jobs. This is probably what the PN government does not wish to see, (and which led to them allowing) the delay of Undi18,” said the former finance minister

The EC announced last month that the implementation of Undi 18 would be deferred to September 2022 at the earliest.

The EC blamed movement-controls against the Covid-19 spread as the prime reason for the delay.

The new deadline is more than a year later than promised by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) Takiyuddin Hassan, who originally said the new law would be implemented by July this year.

Lim said Putrajaya should have borrowed more money from the RM1.3 trillion domestic debt market to spend more on saving and creating more jobs.

He said that he is disappointed with PN for not emulating Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) Malaysia@Work program unveiled in the 2020 Budget.

Under the programme, PH offered wage incentives to out-of-work employees of RM500 per month and hiring incentives to employers of RM300 a month for a period of 2 years.

“Unfortunately, PN refuses to spend the RM13 billion needed to create the 650,000 jobs, which would help to resolve the youth unemployment of 13.9% for those between 15 and 24, coming up to 347,600 unemployed youths.”

Further, Human Resources Minister M. Saravanan and the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy) Mustapa Mohamad had refused to uphold the minimum monthly wage of RM1,200, and instead asked unemployed graduates to accept a monthly pay of RM1,000 as better than not having a job.”

“Defending monthly pay below the minimum wage is not only illegal but also a betrayal of workers’ rights,” Lim stressed. – April 24, 2021.