See the caring difference between Malaysia and Singapore prime ministers?

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No News Is Bad News

 Two prime ministers who show a vast difference in caring for their rakyat dan negara (people and country).

See the caring difference between Malaysia and Singapore prime ministers?

KUALA LUMPUR, July 2, 2025: Singaporeans are not only getting a price cut in electricity tariff, the senior citizens can claim S$800 SG60 vouchers from yesterday.

Adults are to get S$600 in vouchers from July 22.

What are Malaysians getting from Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Unity Government (UG)?

The “caring” UG is slapping higher power tariffs that will result in a domino effect on inflation.

They also will suffer higher living costs like putting the avocado and food beyond the reach of the lower income and senior citizens through multiple taxes.

No News Is Bad News reproduces below a Straits Times report on how the island republic government is doing all it can to reduce the burden on cost of living of Singaporeans and the opposite of what the UG is doing:

Seniors can claim $800 SG60 vouchers from July 1; adults to get $600 in vouchers from July 22

Each person will also receive in the mail an SG60 postcard containing a message from Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and a QR code that can be scanned to claim the vouchers.

ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN

Published Jul 01, 2025, 10:30 AM

Updated Jul 01, 2025, 07:28 PM

SINGAPORE – Singaporean seniors aged 60 and above can now claim $800 worth of SG60 vouchers, while adults aged between 21 and 59 will be able to claim $600 worth of the same vouchers from July 22.

Unlike CDC vouchers, which are issued to households, these one-off vouchers to celebrate Singapore’s 60th year of independence are for individual Singaporeans. They are part of a broader SG60 Package announced at Budget 2025 by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.

Seniors can claim their vouchers at  from 10am on July 1, while other adults can do so from 10am on July 22.

The vouchers can be used at all businesses that accept CDC vouchers and are valid till Dec 31, 2026.

In total, some three million adults will get the vouchers, which are estimated to cost the Government a total of $2.02 billion. 

“The SG60 vouchers are our way of recognising the contributions of all Singaporeans in our nation-building journey,” said PM Wong in a social media post on July 1.

Each person will also receive in the mail an SG60 postcard designed by differently abled artists. The postcard contains a message from PM Wong and a QR code that can be scanned to claim the vouchers.

Seniors will get to claim their vouchers first “in appreciation of their longstanding contributions to Singapore’s growth and success”, said the Community Development Council in a statement on July 1.

This earlier roll-out will also ensure that seniors can get dedicated help to claim their vouchers.

The claim and spend process for SG60 Vouchers is the same as that for CDC vouchers – upon claiming the vouchers, the individual will receive an SMS link from “gov.sg”.

Those who need help to claim their vouchers can get assistance at community centres and clubs (CCs), and at SG Digital Community Hubs.

In the first two weeks of the launch until July 11, about 200 volunteers from public agencies and schools such as ITE College West, Nanyang Polytechnic and Tampines Meridian Junior College will be stationed at selected CCs alongside CDC ambassadors to assist residents.

Half of the vouchers – $400 for seniors and $300 for adults – can be used at participating supermarkets, and the other half at participating hawker stalls and heartland merchants.

This covers some 23,000 heartland shops and hawkers, and eight supermarket chains that have over 400 outlets all over Singapore. They are Ang Mo Supermarket, Cold Storage, Giant Singapore, Hao Mart, FairPrice, Prime Supermarket, Sheng Siong and U Stars Supermarket.

The SG60 vouchers will support Singaporeans in defraying cost-of-living pressures, Ms Low Yen Ling, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry, and Culture, Community and Youth, told reporters at a briefing on the voucher scheme on June 25.

Around $1 billion worth of SG60 vouchers will also “go some way (towards) supporting our heartland shops and hawkers in increasing footfall and also sales”, she noted.

Participating merchants can be found at go.gov.sg/sg60voucher

 

Ms Low, who is also the chairwoman of the mayors’ committee, said: “The 1½ years of validity period (of the vouchers) will give all Singaporeans greater flexibility to pace, use and spend their SG60 vouchers gradually.”

The SG60 vouchers are part of a slew of SG60 goodies announced by PM Wong at Budget 2025. Other initiatives include a personal income tax rebate, a gift for babies born this year, and $100 in SG Culture Pass credits for every Singaporean aged 18 and above in 2025. 

In 2025, Singaporean households also received $300 worth of CDC vouchers in January, and $500 worth of CDC vouchers in May. These are valid till Dec 31, 2025.

Anjali Raguraman is a correspondent at The Straits Times. She covers politics, as well as consumer stories spanning tourism, retail and F&B.

Tuesday, 1 July 2025

Malaysia raises power tariffs, but Singapore does the opposite! Does it make any sense?

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No News Is Bad News

Malaysia raises power tariffs, but Singapore does the opposite! Does it make any sense?

KUALA LUMPUR, July 2, 2025: Malaysia’s Madani Unity Government (UG) is raising electricity and gas prices but Singapore is doing the opposite.

While Singapore, an island republic which has zero natural resources, is justifying a 2.3% drop in tariffs for households due to lower energy and fuel costs, what is Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s justification for “punishing” Malaysians?

Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB)’s net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025 (1QFY2025) rose nearly 48% to RM1.1 billion from RM715.7 million a year earlier.

In Financial Year 2024, TNB’s total net profit surged nearly 70% to RM4.69 billion – its highest since Financial year 2018!

There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for making Malaysians pay more for electricity.

It sure looks like Anwar and UG need to force Malaysians to pay for corruption (read as 1Malaysia Development Berhad) and for aide to foreigners (read as Palestinians).

That’s UG’s skewered care for Malaysian needs and their socio-economic misery.

No News Is Bad News reproduces below a Finance Twitter damning report on Anwar and UG on raising electricity tariffs as re-posted by The Coverage:

News

Singapore Electricity & Gas Prices Drops – But The Opposite Happens In Malaysia When TNB Net Profit Surged Nearly 70%

1 July, 2025

 

According to Finance Twitter , households in Singapore have reasons to smile from July to September due to lower energy and fuel costs – a drop in electricity and gas prices. Electricity bills will decrease by 0.65 cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while gas prices will fall by 0.44 cent per kWh. This comes after grid operator SP Group announced on June 30, 2025 that the electricity tariff for households will drop 2.3%.

Essentially, an average four-room Housing Board household may see a S$2.36 drop in its monthly electricity bill. Meanwhile, City Energy, the producer and retailer of piped gas, announced that the gas tariff will drop from 22.72 cents per kWh to 22.28 cents per kWh due to lower fuel costs, compared with the previous quarter.

SP Group and City Energy review their respective electricity and gas tariffs every quarter based on guidelines set by the electricity and gas industry regulator – Energy Market Authority. Each quarter, the energy cost component of the electricity tariff and the fuel cost component of the gas tariff use the average natural gas prices and the average fuel prices in the first 2½ months in the preceding quarter. 

While the savings from the decreases in electricity and gas may be small, it nevertheless shows a caring government that transparently returns the benefits of lower commodities to consumers. But that’s not all. More than 950,000 Singaporean Housing Board households will receive rebates to their utility and conservancy bills in July, as part of a government scheme to help them with the cost of living.

Depending on their HDB flat type, eligible households will receive up to S$190 (RM627) in U-Save rebates for their utility bills, and a maximum of a month of rebates for their service and conservancy charges (S&CC). The rebates are disbursed every three months – in April, July, October and January – each year to help lower- and middle-income households cope with the increasing cost of living.

In total, eligible Singaporean HDB households will receive up to US$760 (RM2,510) in U-Save rebates for the financial year from April 2025 to March 2026. Meanwhile, eligible households can expect to receive a total of up to 3.5 months of S&CC rebates in the same period. To be eligible for the U-Save rebate, there must be at least one Singaporean owner or occupier in the household if the flat is partially rented or not rented out.

However, the opposite is happening in neighbouring Malaysia. In Peninsular Malaysia, the base electricity tariff is set to increase by 14.2% starting July 1, 2025, moving from 39.95 sen/kWh to 45.62 sen/kWh, according to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Hilariously, the government of Anwar Ibrahim argued that the hike is necessary to reflect the higher fuel costs.

Even though Malaysia’s base electricity tariff now exceeds that of Vietnam and Indonesia, the Anwar administration still argues the need to rationalise subsidies due to fiscal constraints. Likewise, Tenaga, the utility giant that operates and monopolizes the power grid in the country, pointed to higher fuel costs assumption – coal and gas – as the main reason for the increment.

However, Tenaga as well as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the Finance Minister, cannot explain why Malaysian consumers always suffer endless higher electricity tariffs, but Singaporean consumers get to enjoy a lower rate. While PM Anwar has said the tariff adjustment is not expected to affect 85% of households, which reportedly consume 20% of the electricity supply, the chain reaction is another story.

Regardless of size, businesses affected by the increase in electricity hikes are set to pass down the cost of doing business to consumers. Mr Anwar tried – and failed – to reassure the business community on February 3 that the electricity price increase would not be 14%. He said a “small increase” was necessary to generate additional revenue for the government to fund public utilities.

Worse, he tried to hoodwink the people that his government needed to increase revenue by imposing higher tariffs so that he could improve education quality. He also insulted the people’s intelligence with an excuse that the electricity tariff hike would apply only to the industrial sector and the wealthy, pretending that the extra costs would not be passed down to poor consumers.

But not all business leaders appear to be convinced. Speaking to the audience before Mr Anwar at a Chinese New Year celebration on Feb 3, the president of the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM), Mr Ng Yih Pyng, urged that economic and subsidy reforms be implemented gradually, to avoid disrupting markets and businesses.

“Given the accumulation of additional operating costs, we sincerely urge the government to maintain electricity tariffs at current levels throughout 2025-2026, to ease the financial burden on businesses and mitigate inflationary pressures from increased operating costs,” – said Mr Ng, who represents the ACCCIM’s 110,000 members. 

Representing more than 4,000 manufacturing and industrial companies, FMM (Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers) president Soh Thian Lai similarly complained that the government should maintain the current electricity tariff as the sector faces other challenges such as a service tax hike for logistics, additional costs for e-invoicing, and the upcoming EPF contributions for foreign workers.

The latest electricity hike isn’t the first daylight robbery though. In December 2024, after getting the nod from the government, Tenaga Nasional announced that the base tariff will be raised from 39.95 sen per kWh in the 2022 to 2024 period, to 45.62 sen per kWh in the 2025 to 2027 period, from July 1, 2025. In fact, the base tariff has been steadily increasing from 38.53 sen per kwh in the 2015 to 2017 period.

The best part is Tenaga Nasional Berhad’s net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025 (1QFY2025) rose nearly 48% to RM1.1 billion from RM715.7 million a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter grew 17.6% to RM16 billion from RM13.64 billion last year, driven by a 17.5% increase in electricity sales – attributed to regulatory adjustments under the incentive-based regulation framework.

In Financial Year 2024, Tenaga’s total net profit surged nearly 70% to RM4.69 billion – its highest since Financial year 2018, boosted by gains in foreign exchange translation and higher electricity sales, not to mention higher tariff rates. Total revenue increased by 6.9% to RM56.74 billion. Of course, “Robin Hood” Anwar tried to hide this fact as he can’t explain why the people must pay more so that Tenaga can profits more.

Source : Finance Twitter