KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 — About 13,000 next-of-kin or family members of those who died of Covid-19 have yet to apply for the Covid-19 Death Management Special Assistance (BKPC) under the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma).

Director-general Datuk Aminuddin Hassim said so far, the agency had received 4,311 applications and of that total 3,496 were eligible to receive BKPC and had undergone a data verification process from the Health Ministry (MOH) to obtain the special assistance.

“The special assistance is only for Malaysian citizens. Therefore, I call on those who have not applied to do so,” he told a press conference via the Zoom app today.

As of yesterday, Nadma has channelled RM16.1 million to 3,235 next-of-kin under the BKPC and RM22.2 million to 16,722 patients through the Special Covid-19 Assistance.

The one-off RM5,000 special assistance was introduced by the government to lessen the burden of Malaysians who lost their source of income or their loved ones due to the virus.

Meanwhile, under the Special Covid-19 Assistance, RM100 a day will be paid for up to a maximum of 14 days to those who have received quarantine orders from the MOH or are undergoing treatment at hospitals or home-surveillance order.

On the delay in processing the application, Aminuddin said it was among others, due to deaths outside government facilities, inactive bank accounts and the need to re-look into the applications from those who were not eligible for the assistance.

He said that a period of 30 working days from the date of receipt of complete application documents is needed to process the application which includes the verification process and data matching from the MOH.

Applicants who did not get any reply after 30 days can contact Nadma via email at [email protected] and [email protected]. — Bernama