Anwar announced four days ago that STR, which literally translates to “compassionate cash donation” or “contribution”, will replace the more generic name of an existing direct cash transfer programme for low-income households and singles first introduced in 2012 by the Najib administration.
The cash transfers, first called Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia or BR1M, have undergone several name changes since but this is the first administration to call it a donation. Rebranding government initiatives has become a sort of convention, often carried out by succeeding prime ministers immediately after a leadership change.
Policies that are popular are retained but rebranded to reflect the overarching vision of the new leadership, although analysts believe the exercise is mostly for political expediency
Still, policy designers have called for caution when choosing terminologies to define government programmes. Hafiz Noor Shams, a visiting fellow at the think tank Research for Social Advancement (Refsa), said the wrong wording could confuse the public about a policy, and potentially make it less effective.
“Ideally, the term used should make everybody understand the policy plainly. And the policy is cash transfer, which is designed to mitigate the effects of rising living costs. More specifically, it's meant to be a better alternative to subsidies or any kind of voucher system,” he said.
“The naming matters, because it tells the public the purpose of the policy. If the term doesn't do that, then there's a risk the public and even lawmakers will misunderstand the purpose of the policy, which has been the case for some time now," he added.
“Here, 'sumbangan' suggests the cash is a present, a gift or some act of philanthropy. That divorces the policy from its original purposes in the public mind and in the mind of some lawmakers.”
Gift or aid?
In the past, politicians from the ruling parties were known to dangle government aid and programmes as a “gift” to solicit support, practice policy researchers and advocates have widely criticised as exploitative.
Cash transfers, based on the idea of redistributive fairness, are considered one of the most effective methods to reduce poverty. The World Bank said small, frequent, and reliable cash payments to poor households have been shown to improve per capita consumption, savings, nutrition, mental health, teen pregnancies, child marriages, and intimate partner violence.
Malaysia only adopted the approach in 2012, starting with a pilot one-off RM500 cash payment to low income households that earned below RM3,000. The programme eventually continued with the amount of payment raised over the years. The first BR1M cash transfers amounted to RM2.6 billion. Five years later, it rose to RM26.2 billion.
