The new rate, up from 20 sen a bag at present, will be charged from Thursdays to Sundays, while no plastic bags would be sold on other days, state executive councillor Phee Boon Poh (DAP-Sungai Puyu) said today.

The current 20 sen charge is applied every day, while Mondays are no-plastic-bag days. The fees are collected by the city councils, as part of measures to curtail plastic waste.

“We will start promoting this initiative from November so that consumers are aware of the bad effects of single-use plastics,” Phee said in his winding-up address today.

Separately, Phee raised a complaint over federal intervention in the distribution of federal-funded Covid-19 “food baskets” for the poor and needy at the height of the first movement control order in March, which was halted by a federal minister for political reasons.

Phee said distribution of the food baskets was diverted to political agents, instead of MPs. He said this was very disappointing when the local MPs knew their constituencies better and the aid could have been given to those deserving.

He also said the order to divert the aid came from the “deputy higher education minister”, who wrote to the Penang Welfare Department to divert the food baskets to third-party agents, instead of Pakatan Harapan MPs.

Eventually, almost no one in the state welfare aid list received the aid, Phee said.

“Can you imagine an education minister ordering the welfare chief not to hand over the aid to the wakil rakyat as decided? How can you deny the deserving of their aid?” he asked in his winding-up address today.

Phee said such a move was unbecoming. He said the Penang state government handed over Covid-19 aid to all constituencies regardless of whether they were held by the opposition or not.