PETALING JAYA: The government has ramped up efforts to cushion households from the rising cost of living, with 15,308 Jualan Rahmah Madani Programme sessions held nationwide between Jan 1 and Aug 31.
Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali told the Senate yesterday that this was a marked increase compared with 12,419 sessions in 2024 and 6,870 in 2023.
“Following the additional allocations announced by the prime minister on July 23, the ministry has set a target of 20,000 sessions in 2025, representing a 191% increase from 2023 and a 61% rise from 2024,” he said.
As of Tuesday, 1,234 strategic partners have participated in the programme, including hypermarkets, supermarkets, wholesalers, grocery shops, cooperatives, logistics providers, organisations and 48 public markets.
Launched under the Payung Rahmah framework, the programme offers items at 10% to 30% below market prices.
The initiative will cover 222 parliamentary constituencies, 600 state seats and 40 zones in the Federal Territories.
Armizan also said precautionary measures were taken to stabilise supply and pricing following the government’s additional RM100 Sumbangan Asas Rahmah (Sara) cash aid for 22 million adult recipients, involving over RM2 billion in expenditure.
“Among the steps taken are enhanced enforcement inspections, with 8,438 premises checked between Aug 31 and Sept 2, as well as daily monitoring of 1,160 premises covering 316 essential items by price monitoring officers. All items under the Sara programme have also been added to the ministry’s monitoring list,” he said.
Between Aug 31 and Tuesday, the ministry received five official complaints, including two related to Sara. Armizan stressed that under its SOP, all complaints on pricing and supply must be resolved within 24 hours by the ministry.
More than 2.9 million recipients used the cash aid in the first three days, with public spending hitting RM192.4 million nationwide. The Finance Ministry said the highest volume was recorded on Tuesday, with over 1.1 million transactions.
