Those who had wrongfully taken Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) monetary assistance many times but chose not to return the excess will be blacklisted from receiving it next year.

 

Director of the National Budget office of the Finance Ministry Siti Zauyah Md Desa said of the RM3.37 million which had been overpaid, the ministry has recovered RM948,890.

She was speaking in a townhall session where senior government servants and the Chief Secretary to the Government Ali Hamsa met the media.

 

“This accounts for about 30 percent of the amount that the ministry may have overpaid. We are in the process of recovering the remaining RM2.37 million. Warning letters have been issued informing them to return the money.

“We have their names and identity card numbers. If they fail to return what they owe, they will be blacklisted next year,” she warned.

 

The director however admitted some of them are poor which made recovering the money more problematic.

 

When asked if there was a deadline for the money to be returned, she merely said the ministry would stick to issuing letters warning them that they would be blacklisted.

 

Zauyah ( right ) said the ministry has issued a feature on the vouchers beginning with this year's BR1M to ensure there is no recurrence.

 

She told this to reporters in reply to the Audit Report 2014, which pointed out the excess sums paid, and that some have claimed BR1M four times.

No security feature

Earlier when asked how the problem could have occurred where payments were made to the same person, Zauyah said the problem was at state level.

The director said the vouchers in the past did not have features to verify if the person had made claims before.

 

“We don’t know if the recipients had received more than one because previous (vouchers) did not have a name or IC number. Hopefully with the new security feature this won’t happen again.”

 

Yesterday, it was reported in the Auditor General's Report that at least 6577 people had double dipped from the BR1M fund from 2012 till early 2014, costing the government RM3.34 million.

 

Of this number, only 1771 people had refunded the Finance Ministry.

 

BR1M is the brainchild of Premier Najib Abdul Razak. It has been severely criticised by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who saw it as an attempt at vote-buying and not addressing the fundamental problems causing to low income.