BPN recipients estimated at 10.77 mln people involving RM11.5 bln allocation

KUALA LUMPUR: The total number of Bantuan Prihatin Nasional (BPN) recipients, including the third group comprising those who made an appeal from May 11 to 31, is estimated to be 10.77 million which involves an allocation of RM11.5 billion, said Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz.

“This represents an additional allocation of RM1.5 billion (on top of the initial allocation of RM10 billion),” he said when presenting the 7th Inter-Agency Economic Stimulus Implementation and

Coordination Unit (Laksana) report on the implementation of the Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Package yesterday.

Tengku Zafrul said up to May 31, the first group of 8.3 million recipients had received payments in stages through the first and second phases. A total of 7.93 million recipients in Phase 1 and 7.9 million in Phase 2 received a combined RM9.11 billion, for a completion status of 96.5 per cent.

The rest of the recipients who have yet to collect the cash payments from Bank Simpanan

Nasional branches can do so until Dec 31.

The second group of BPN recipients, numbering 2.3 million, was announced on May 9. He said 2.08 million of them had received RM1.57 billion of BPN assistance in lump sum payments.

On the third group consisting of those who appealed between May 11 and 31, he said the 170,000 appeals that were received would be reviewed manually.

“The outcome will be announced in mid-June and payments will be disbursed at end-June,” he said. — Bernama