Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government has identified an initial 268,000 poor families through its eKasih system who will benefit from the plan.

He said the government will allocate RM13.4 million a year for payouts under the programme.

In a statement today, Ismail said the government planned to improve the socio-economic status of families by focusing on efforts to improve the income of heads of households from the poor and hardcore poor groups whose breadwinners had died.

He said the pandemic had exposed the weaknesses of the social protection system of many countries, including Malaysia.

He said the Malaysian Social Protection Council had decided to roll out several initiatives to strengthen the social protection agenda to achieve zero hardcore poverty by 2025, in line with the 12th Malaysia Plan.

Previously, Ismail had said that new and innovative social protection solutions were urgently required to strike a balance between the provision of safety nets, promotion of financial resilience, and human capital development.

He said quick responses were required to uplift the community, promote rights and bridge social protection gaps, especially for informal economy workers, housewives or unpaid family workers, such as caregivers.

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