Umno Supreme Council member Mohd Puad Zarkashi has called on MPs to reject the budget at the committee stage for the next few ministries, saying they were “tricked” about the Employees Provident Fund’s (EPF) i-Sinar scheme.
This follows EPF’s announcement on the conditions and requirements for applicants to be eligible for the scheme.
In a Facebook post, Puad said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin did not honour his promise and claimed MPs were tricked into supporting the budget at the policy stage last week.
“I’ve read the comments of the people in many Whatsapp groups and Facebook pages, including Najib Razak’s.
“They are clearly angry, so just reject the budget at the committee stage for other ministries such as the housing and local government and communications and multimedia ministries,” he told MPs.
“Parliament will end on Dec 17. The people want to see Parliament function in defending their livelihood.”
EPF announced that only certain people would be allowed to make withdrawals under i-Sinar, including workers who have not contributed to EPF for at least two months and those who had suffered a minimum 30% reduction in their basic salary from March.
A second category of members whose total income has been reduced by at least 30% from March are also eligible, but they have to show supporting documents to verify this.
Najib yesterday urged Putrajaya not to set any conditions for the scheme, saying some of the requirements were illogical and made things more difficult for the people.
Najib, who is also Barisan Nasional (BN) backbencher chief, previously said BN would only support the budget if Putrajaya extends the loan moratorium by six months and allows contributors to make a one-off RM10,000 withdrawal from their EPF Account 1. – FMT