LETTERS: I was surprised when the government announced a new name, "Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah", for the cash transfer programme. It means Compassionate Cash Contribution.
It was first named, following the passing of the mini budget, as "Bantuan Tunai Rakyat", or People's Cash Assistance, which was a better name.
Prior to that, the programme had a more apt name, almost free of political branding: "Bantuan Sara Hidup" or Cost of Living Aid.
When the programme was introduced and nationalised by a former prime minister, many said the programme was politically motivated.
Nevertheless, it was proven so popular that it expanded from seven million recipients in 2012 to more than eight million recipients in 2022.
Cash transfer has been proven as one of the most cost-effective tools to help low-income groups.
The World Food Programme calls it as giving "purchasing power to vulnerable people who know best what they need".
The World Bank said a simple cash transfer was an important tool as a pandemic response, reaching 1.36 billion people.
So we can agree that cash assistance programmes can elevate people's financial lives, providing them more liberty and consequently, dignity. The opposite of poverty, is indeed indignity.
Cash transfer is a redistributive policy where government taxes its more well-off citizens and uses that money to help the needy and its worse-off citizens.
Cash assistance programme should be paired with poverty graduation programme and better income tax data.
There are only 1.3 million individual taxpayers, out of an estimated 15 million labour force in Malaysia.
However, "sumbangan" connotes that it is a contribution by the government and political branding, which we should do away with.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States introduced the Economic Impact Payment, and Singapore has since 2007 had a Workfare Income Supplement Scheme.
Both are straightforward names with almost no political branding.
M. QAYYUM AKHTARI
Kuala Lumpur
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times