BN Manifesto: 'Top up' income, vetting of key govt appointments, political financing act

SHAH ALAM - Barisan Nasional today launched the GE15 manifesto, promising to lay out a comprehensive national plan called "Padu", consisting 99 efforts.

Padu will look into Gender Equality Tribunal and establish an Anti-Sexual Harassment Tribunal.

BN also promises to amend the Federal Constitution on citizenship rights of children born abroad by Malaysian women married to foreign nationals.

Padu will also include political funding act.

“The appointment of key national positions such as MACC chief commissioner and EC Chairman will be screened by a special parliamentary committee,"

Barisan Nasional chief Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said in his speech shown live.

He assured that it is a "serious and a rational" plan with five main ideas.

The plans, he said, is to ensure political stability returns to the country with a strong mandate for Barisan Nasional and to end the "drama" of instability that was caused by politicians jumping ships.

The Bagan Datuk candidate further said the coalition will manage the country well.

"This can be achieved through people-friendly policies and development," he said.

Some of the plans under Padu are that households that earn less than RM2,208 monthly called the Assistive Basic Income programme will have money automatically credited to them.

"This scheme is the most fair, rational and strategic, it not only fights cost of living but also to ensure no household is below poverty line," he said while announcing the manifesto.

He further said middle income or M40 group with those earning RM100,000 will enjoy a two per cent tax cut.

The second focus under the Padu programme would include a structural radical change. It looks at strengthening preschool education for those 6 years and below.

BN will also introduce schooling without text books and distributing free laptops to all B40 students, ensuring schools are equipped with 5G internet services within 18 months.

In schools: "other than Bahasa and English, all schools will also have Mandarin, Tamil, Iban, Kadazan, Dusun and other languages," he said.

As for higher education, Zahid said free higher education will be given to the B40 students, public universities while higher institutions will conduct hybrid education- 50 per cent online and 50 per cent face-to-face meet.

“To eliminate exploitation, employers will need to pay allowances to all students or anyone doing practical training or internship,” he said.

He went further on introducing schools as a platform to empower new skills such as coding and creativity.

There are also a slew of incentives for the corporate sector, senior citizens and to end all import permits and approved permits for electrical vehicles to ensure fairer access for all, Zahid said.

“Moreover, with the cooperation of the state government, we will also try to increase the coverage of the forested area in the country to 60 per cent,” he said in the speech.