PUTRAJAYA must not shirk its duty to assist the middle-income earners and small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) following the revocation of food subsidies, DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng said.

He said Malaysians with a monthly household income of between RM4,800 and RM11,000 feel forgotten and abandoned by  Putrajaya.

This, he said, is following the withdrawal of subsidies for bottled cooking oil, chicken and egg, effective today.

The bottom 40% group earning up to RM4,850 a month are due to receive RM100 per household and RM50 per unmarried person from the government to cope with the removal of these subsidies.

“The M40 get nothing. The government should provide some assistance bearing in mind that like people in B40, many in the M40 spend more than 25% of their disposable income on food,” Lim  said in a statement today.

The former finance minister said the income of Malaysians has been eroded by the steep decline in the value of the ringgit, which has depreciated to historic lows against the Singapore and US dollars, two of the country’s three biggest trading partners.

“The Covid-19 pandemic since 2020 has unfortunately caused more than 580,000 M40 households to slip into the B40 category.

“SMEs face the same predicament of not getting sufficient assistance from the government to meet rising prices.”

He said the higher operating costs of SMEs are further compounded by an acute labour shortage caused by ministerial incompetence and red tape.

“Why impose additional hardships on SMEs when this acute labour shortage can be easily resolved at a stroke of the ministerial pen?

“The federal government must not betray its national duty to assist both the M40 and SMEs,” Lim said.

He said a 5kg bottle of cooking oil that used to cost RM28 now costs RM41.

“Such a huge jump (shows that the) Consumer Price Index or inflation rate of 2.8% in May 2022 does not reflect the actual situation on the ground.

“The increase in the Producer Price Index (PPI) for local production, which measures the cost of goods at the factory gate, of 11.2% in May 2022 compared with 11% in April 2022, is probably more accurate.” – July 1, 2022.