Did Rafizi's vending machines dispense dreams or dividends?

The Economy Ministry has once again come under scrutiny over the People’s Income Initiative (IPR), a programme known for bright red vending machines in public areas.

After its launch in 2023 by former economy minister Rafizi Ramli, critics had often lampooned the IPR as being another example of a purportedly hare-brained formula.

However, in a written parliamentary response to Bachok MP Syahir Che Sulaiman yesterday, Economy Minister Akmal Nasrullah Nasir said the vending machine programme saw 929 out of 1,228 participants, or just below 76 percent, recording cumulative sales exceeding RM2,000 per month.

He said two participants even recorded average monthly sales exceeding RM13,000: one at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Machang and another at Sungai Buloh Hospital.

He said figures cited are out of 6,781 households from the hardcore poor, poor, and B40 groups that had participated in the IPR initiative as of Aug 31 this year.

Although the vending machines under IPR’s Insan food entrepreneurship programme is the most visible to the public, it actually has two other components: Intan for group farming and Ikhsan for service workers.

The IPR-Intan programme focuses on crop cultivation and livestock farming, with projects involving at least five participants working on a plot of land no less than 10 acres.

Akmal said about 65 percent of the programme’s 2,034 participants have achieved monthly incomes of at least RM2,000 via MD2 pineapple cultivation as well as chilli, corn, and eggplant farming.

RM22m in revenue

In April, Akmal - widely perceived as Rafizi’s protégé - said IPR-Intan generated cumulative revenue reaching RM22 million since the programme’s introduction in 2023.

Bernama quoted him as saying that the fertigated chilli cultivation project netted an average monthly income of about RM3,000 for 20 participants while producing over 200 tonnes of chillies worth an estimated RM1.5 million.

Meanwhile earlier this month, Bernama also carried the account of a former factory worker, Rosli Jumain, who said he earns nearly RM3,000 monthly through IPR-Intan compared with RM1,700 at his previous job as a general worker at a factory in Batu Pahat, Johor.

The question from Syahir - who previously debated Rafizi about the economy in 2023 - is the latest in a series of queries over the programme.

In April, Human Resources Minister R Ramanan had criticised the IPR, claiming that RM750 million was allocated to the programme for "vending machines to sell nasi lemak".

However, Rafizi rebutted the allegation by pointing out that about 50 percent of the funding went to the Intan arm of the project through opening land for modern farms, while 30 percent went to Insan and the remaining 20 percent was for Ikhsan.

He added that the IPR was designed to focus on the generation of stable income rather than merely distributing aid, which he previously said was a point of failure for previous models aimed at alleviating poverty.