Public Reaction: Third Implementation of PRIHATIN economic package
On April 28, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said that second phase of the Bantuan Prihatin Nasional (BPN) will commence of May 4.
Zafrul said the second phase of payment would cover all eligible recipients, both households and single individuals, in the B40 and M40 groups.
The Social Network Analysis (SNA) shows the communication activity on the third implementation of the PRIHATIN economic stimulus package on Twitter.
As observed, there are a few influencers that appear prominent surrounding the topic from April 28 – April 29.
Further analysis shows the responses in detail.
From April 27 to April 29, 2020, it can be observed that there is a low involvement from the media agencies on PRIHATIN during this time frame.
Instead, it is the Ministry of Finance (MOF) Malaysia, Tengku Zafrul and Jabatan Penerangan Malaysia (JPM) that lead the perception on the economic stimulus package.
Commenting on the Wage Subsidy Programme, Tengku Zafrul said, as of April 26, a total of RM1.35 billion had been approved, benefiting 195,000 employers and affecting 1.5 million workers.
He added that this was an increase from 159,000 employers involving 1.0 million workers from previous report.
The overall network could be filtered based on their degree centrality to get better insight on the core nodes.
The main core network shown the filtered network with adjustment degree 2 and above, that means it shows Twitter accounts that at least tweeted two times or mentioned by two other tweets. There are 60 nodes as the main core network.
Based on the graph, Jpenerangan, tzafrul_aziz and MOFmalaysia have the biggest influence. The network needs to be adjusted to give better view on some nodes that are difficult to see.
The network is the adjustment from the main core network.
There are 60 nodes adjusted from their own new degree. There are Twitter accounts that at least tweeted two times or mentioned by two other tweets.
We can see that the orange, green and purple clusters equally have big influence in the network.
Besides the cash distribution to the public, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) also played a major role in assisting Malaysians through the BPN initiative.
Additionally, EPF launched the Employer Covid-19 assistance programme (e-CAP) on April 23.
The programme was specifically for SMEs, providing them the flexibility to choose to apply for a deferment and restructuring of the employer’s share of EPF contributions for April, May and/or June 2020.
Looking at the Twitter’s response towards the third implementation of the stimulus package, SNA revealed that government institutions and individual – MOF, JPM and Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz deliver a strong voice surrounding the topic.
These influencers appear apparent for their official tweets on the third implementation of the PRIHATIN package which subsequently garnered a lot of traction.