With reference to the Budget for 2006, the All Women's Action Society (Awam) is pleased by the government's decision to allow wives to claim exemption on Real Property Gains Tax.

Previously, only husbands were able to do so even if the property was owned by the wife, a situation which was clearly discriminatory. We laud the government's move to accord equal opportunity to women in this instance and hope that it will continue and accelerate its efforts to amend or abolish the various discriminatory laws and regulations that still exist.

Awam is also pleased to note the allocation of RM488 million to the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development. However, at this point, we have no idea how much of this sum will be allocated to programmes for women, as opposed to programmes for family or community development, etc.

Economically and in many other spheres, women still do not have equal opportunities with men and thus we hope that the ministry will channel sufficient funds into programmes that will ensure this.

Finally, although women were not mentioned as a group in the Budget, we urge all ministries and bodies responsible for conducting all the initiatives and programmes outlined by the Budget to ensure that women are not left behind by them.

That is, those responsible for the planning and implementation of these programmes must employ a gender perspective which will allow them to understand how women's needs and concerns differ from men's due to factors such as gender discrimination and violence against women in society.

They should then plan accordingly and ensure that there is gender parity in terms of the beneficiaries of these programmes.

The writer is the president of the All Women's Action Society (Awam).