THE country’s newly launched SARA aid programme encountered significant technical difficulties on its inaugural day, with system failures preventing thousands of eligible recipients from accessing their RM100 grocery assistance.
The programme, which officially commenced today, attracted massive crowds to participating retailers including the MYDIN hypermarket in Subang Jaya, where beneficiaries arrived early with shopping trolleys loaded with essential items.
Recipients had expected to utilise the RM100 assistance that was loaded onto their MyKad identification cards.
However, technical problems emerged around 11am when the national verification network began experiencing severe slowdowns before completely shutting down.
The system breakdown meant that checkout counters could not validate aid transactions, compelling shoppers to use personal funds for their purchases despite having valid assistance credits.
According to Sin Chew Daily, one affected customer explained that he and his mother had both qualified for the aid, providing them with a combined RM200 spending allowance for household essentials.
When the verification system failed at payment, they were compelled to spend over RM300 from their own pockets.
Speaking to the Chinese daily, MyKasih chief operating officer Yuwendralan Arumugam addressed the situation, acknowledging the programme’s unexpected popularity during its first day of operation.
According to him by 10:42am, approximately 172,000 individuals had successfully utilised the RM100 aid benefit, resulting in total expenditure exceeding RM11 million.
Yuwendralan attributed the technical failure to the massive user volume that exceeded system capacity.
The verification infrastructure, which comprises 18,000 devices distributed across the country, was unable to handle the morning’s unprecedented demand surge.
Authorities are working to resolve the technical issues to ensure smoother operations for the remainder of the programme period.
