eBelia eWallet credit doubled to RM100 but 400,000 fewer people can redeem

Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz has also revealed today that the eBelia eWallet credit initiative has been doubled from RM50 to RM100. In addition, they have also announced a revision that will increase the age limit of youths eligible for the program.

According to Tengku Zafrul, his Ministry has considered the feedback received from various members of Parliament and have made the necessary changes to assist more students in institutions of higher learning.

Eligible youths will receive RM100 instead of the earlier announced RM50 eWallet credit. On top of that, the program will benefit 1.1 million students including those who are more than 20 years old and studying in private institutions (IPTA and IPTS).

He added that there are also requests to increase the allocation to assist more youths affected by the pandemic in Sabah. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance will allocate an additional RM50 million of funding for Sabah in December 2020.

The Ministry of Finance has yet to provide further details on the actual disbursement and supported eWallets. It is worth pointing out that eBelia was initially announced with a budget of RM75 million which will benefit 1.5 million youths aged between 18 to 20 years old.

The number of beneficiaries have been scaled down by 400,000 despite the increase in age limit to cover all students in institutions of higher learning. With the latest revision, MoF will have to fork out RM110 million in total which is an increase of 46.67%.

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