He said the aid was among three proposals on ending hardcore poverty agreed to at the National Economic Action Council meeting which he chaired today, Bernama reported.

Anwar said the council agreed that special monthly cash assistance would be considered to overcome the food poverty line for households unable to participate in income-generating activities due to age and health factors.

He said all agencies and ministries will conduct a review and update the data to confirm the number of recipients who have been given assistance and are able to generate income exceeding the food poverty line.

“All agencies need to identify households which can participate in the programme in the remaining three months and be absorbed into other suitable programmes,” he said in a statement after the meeting.

He said several efforts and programmes have been implemented by the government to eradicate hardcore poverty, including programmes related to monthly cash assistance, home upgrading, providing business capital, skills training and income-generating activities.

Shrinking development budget

Anwar said the meeting had examined and found that the actual amount of development expenditure by the government was shrinking every year, although the budget showed a large increase. This could have a long-term impact on the country’s economic growth.

Apart from that, the implementation of development projects which are problematic and experience delays in implementation has caused an increase in costs and impacted the economy negatively.