People's Well-being Is BN's Main Agenda: Muhyiddin

TAWAU, Jan 17 (Bernama) -- Ensuring the well-being of the people is Barisan Nasional's (BN) main agenda in the quest to turn the country into a developed nation by 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.

This was clearly spelled out in the 2012 Budget tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak last year along with numerous initiatives and programmes for the benefit of the people, he added.

"This means that no one will be left out of the social net provided by the government. We don't discriminate, we provide assistance irrespective of race, religion or creed. Every citizen of 1Malaysia will be assisted.

"The BN-led government is doing this to provide comfort to the people," he said at the handing over of 1Malaysia People's Aid (BR1M) for Tawau and Kalabakan constituencies here.

Muhyiddin said that apart from the various assistance such as the RM100 for school students, RM500 in BR1M for households earning RM3,000 or less a month and RM200 in book vouchers for university students, there were many other facilities given by the government which the people might not be aware of.

For instance, he said, the government spent RM22 billion a year for essential goods subsidy to ensure prices were controlled and lower than the prices which the people would have paid without the subsidy.

He said the government also spent about RM300 million a year to subsidise sugar prices and RM10 billion for fuel.

"If petroleum companies were to impose the market price for diesel and petrol, the RM10 billion would have to come from our pockets. But do you know who paid for this RM10 billion? The government is the one paying it.

"So isn't the BN a good government?" asked Muhyiddin, to which the audience responded in a resounding "yes."

He took to task the opposition which he said had deliberately refused to acknowledge the deeds of the BN government and instead resorted to accusing it of being unfair and not helpful to the people.

Muhyiddin added that the people themselves were reaping the benefit from the assistance provided by the government.