Responsible Govt Helps Mitigate Rising Cost of Living

SINGAPORE, Jan 4 (Bernama) -- Any responsible government would do the most that it can do to help mitigate the rising cost of living of the people. Among the first issues to be tackled is the monthly utility cost especially those in the low- and medium-income groups. It was reported here that more than 800,000 Housing & Development Board (HDB) households will receive the next instalment of utilities rebates from this month. Depending on their flat size, eligible Singaporean households will each receive a GST Voucher – Utilities-Save (U-Save) of between S$45 ($S1=RM3.05) and S$65. It was introduced by the Singapore government in Budget 2012 to help lower-and middle-income households with their expenses. The GST Voucher – U-Save provides HDB households with a rebate to offset their utilities bills, and is paid every January, April, July and October. The Malaysian government likewise has its own way of helping Malaysians. A RM20 (about US$4.63) subsidy on monthly electric bills is provided by the Malaysian government to all eligible Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) residential customers. This rebate, offered since Oct 1, 2008 to one million of the utility giant's residential customers, will appear in monthly electricity bills as 'Government Rebate'. Besides the RM20 subsidy, the government is offering a discount of between three and 10 per cent to industrial users whose total electricity cost is at least five per cent of their total annual cost of operations. TNB has to date 8.5 million customers in the country.(US$1=RM4.316) -- BERNAMA