Free food on the way for poor varsity students

PUTRAJAYA: Efforts have been mobilised via the government’s Foodbank Malaysia initiative to help underprivileged university students.

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said foodbank lorries distributing surplus food supply, including perishable food items, had begun heading to the universities.

Saifuddin said he had received a call from Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng early yesterday to inform him that the Finance Ministry had agreed to give a special allocation of RM3 million to get 14 refrigerated lorries for the programme.

Lim said these lorries would be used to distribute free food to students from the B40 (Bottom 40 per cent) income group at 20 public universities.

On how underprivileged students could access the free food, Saifuddin said based on his meeting with deputy vice-chancellors from 20 public universities on March 7, several measures had been agreed upon, including providing full logistic support.

“We can use the big kitchens in hotel catering schools of some universities to cook the food and distribute them to the students.

“Student associations have agreed to form volunteer groups to cook the food received (under Foodbank Malaysia) for distribution.

“The universities even agreed to provide the list of students from the B40 group in their campuses. I have been told that on average, 50 per cent of university students are from the low-income group,” he said.

Berita Harian had on Sunday reported how some university students, mostly from the B40 group, had adopted a frugal lifestyle to ensure they had something to eat the next day.

Since the Foodbank Malaysia programme was launched on Dec 22, Saifuddin said, 430 branches of supermarkets had agreed to contribute the food surplus to help the hardcore poor and B40 students.

The companies which have agreed to be part of the Foodbank Malaysia programme are Tesco, Giant, AEON Co, AEON Big, NSK, Hero Market, Econsave, TF Value, 99 Speedmart, My Family Store, SegiFresh, Mydin and LuLu.

Saifuddin said the Foodbank Malaysia Foundation was formed on Jan 7 and was ready to deploy efforts to help those in need.

“The ministry is also drafting a bill to regulate the execution of the Foodbank programme in Malaysia, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament by year end.”