Why give cash to civil servants when they are not going to lost their job. Why bother to help M40 when the once at risk is SME going to bankrupt and lay off employees as they do not have income and need to pay the fixed cost.

PETALING JAYA: A major challenge of the RM250bil economic stimulus package is to ensure all the assistance announced reach the intended recipients in a fast and transparent manner, says Senior Minister Datuk Seri Azmin Ali.

“That is our challenge. The Finance Ministry has prepared modules for every ministry on the stimulus package so that they know what is to be done, ” he said in an interview aired on TV1 yesterday.

He said his ministry, through the Unit for the Implementation and Coordination of National Agencies on the Economic Stimulus Package (Laksana), would ensure a quick and smooth implementation of the stimulus package.

The International Trade and Industry Minister said the government needed to discard bureaucracy as people who lost their jobs needed financial help quickly.

He said that at present, the government only had data on the B40 group and petty traders but not on the M40 group.

“The M40 is our challenge as all initiatives by the government hardly gave attention to this group. We have to step up our efforts to ensure those who apply from the M40 group are those who really qualify, ” he said.

B40 is the base group which earns less than RM4,000 a month while M40 is the middle class in the RM4,000-RM8,000 salary bracket.

Azmin said most Malaysians had bank accounts and funds would be credited to them after they are confirmed to be qualified.He also said that the stimulus package was not just in aid of the rakyat but also the private sector.

“If companies are not assisted, workers may lose their jobs. This will create bigger problems. When workers are retrenched and when the difficult period is over, the capacity to retrain workers would have worsened.

“The government has come in with a cash flow injection so that employers have no reason to retrench their workers.

“We prioritise the need to help the people. If the people are suffering, I cannot go down to the villages and tell Makcik Kiah that the government cannot help because the fiscal deficit is at 4%.

“They would not understand. So, we focus on the rakyat first and later we will address fiscal issues in the long run, ” he said.

When unveiling the stimulus package on Friday, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin used the analogy of a pisang goreng seller he called Makcik Kiah to explain how women in the B40 group stood to benefit from the stimulus package