A trader at the Taman Tun Dr Ismail market donates to Tabung Harapan Malaysia June 12, 2018. — Picture by Ham Abu Bakar

KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 — The national crowdfund Tabung Harapan Malaysia (THM) has surpassed the RM132 million mark to date.

On its first month anniversary last Friday, the fund reached RM130,917,831.30. But it can be hard to imagine such a vast figure on its own. So we thought of putting it against other numbers in the country to help provide some perspective.

It certainly pales in comparison to the country's debts and liabilities that is said to amount to RM1 trillion (RM1,000,000,000,000), with the latter being 7,638 times larger in amount.

It is also 8.4 times smaller than the RM1.1 billion (RM1,100,000,000) appraised value of the luxury items and cash seized by police from properties linked to Datuk Seri Najib Razak in relation to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) investigations.

It would however exceed the RM114 million that was seized — including around RM52 million cash and some RM60 million in bank accounts — by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in October 2016 from two Sabah Water Department top officials. It was the biggest haul then in the anti-graft agency’s history for a corruption case.

An array of cash in both ringgit and foreign currency, gold jewellery, land titles and luxury brand watches and handbags were seized from two high ranking Sabah state agency officials in a graft investigation. October 5, 2016. ― Picture by Julia Chan

Well, what of the federal government's budgeted revenue and expenditure for 2018? That comes to an estimated RM239.9 billion and estimated RM280.25 billion, which would be about 1,832 and 2,140.65 times greater than the THM one-month collection.

The collection of the controversial goods and services tax (GST), which was zero-rated from June 1, came up to RM41.206 billion in 2016 and an estimated RM41.5 billion in 2017. The government's overall tax collection including GST in 2016 is RM169.343 billion, and an estimated RM180.194 billion in 2017.

Such numbers tend to dwarf the THM collection's almost RM131 million during the May 30 to June 29 period, with even the annual cash assistance programme 1Malaysia People's Aid (BR1M) which has been rebranded by the Pakatan Harapan government costing a total of RM6.12 billion for over 7.08 million households this year.

Is it pointless?

But nearly RM131 million is nothing to sneeze at, as such an amount is sufficient to carry out projects that would benefit a lot of Malaysians directly and in tangible ways.

For example, based on the Budget 2018 speech, RM90 million can fund 10,600 Malaysians under the MyBrain programme for their Masters and PhD studies, while RM114 million can be used to build 14 new sport complexes.

Even RM50 million would be enough to help 5,000 Orang Asli students under the community food assistance programme.

An allocation of RM420 million in Budget 2018 — including close to RM300 million for Sabah and Sarawak — will enable the provision of clean water supply to 3,000 rural homes, while RM672 million — including RM620 million for Sabah and Sarawak — will allow for electricity supply to be provided to 10,000 homes in rural areas.

Other items allocated in Budget 2018 include training programmes, grants and soft loans for small and medium enterprises via SME Corp (RM200 million), rubber replanting programme and infrastructure to increase latex production (RM200 million), special fund to upgrade and maintenance of schools nationwide (RM550 million), and RM100 schooling assistance to 3.2 million students from low-income households (RM328 million).

But of course, the federal government has promised that every sen in THM — which was set up on May 30 following similar initiatives from citizens — will only be used to service government debts as intended.

Some view Tabung Harapan Malaysia as an avenue for them to show their patriotism to the country. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

Show of patriotism

When you think about the almost RM131 million sum that Malaysians have managed to pour in to the THM fund in just 30 days, that translates to an average of about RM4.36 million per day. Which is actually pretty impressive.

In fact, Malaysians contributed RM7.8 million within the first day of Tabung Harapan Malaysia. The highest daily collections in the one-month period were recorded on June 25 (RM15.53 million) and June 26 (RM18.25 million).

Imagine that each of the 28.723 million Malaysian citizens (Department of Statistics Malaysia's 2017 estimates) gave just a small one-off amount of RM4.56, that alone is enough to amount to a total figure of nearly RM131 milllion in 30 days.

While there are detractors of THM with some viewing it as being ineffective, others see it as an avenue for them to express their love for the country and contribute in whatever way they can, including this 12-year-old schoolboy who decided to forego his eight months' savings of RM214.60 for a drum set.

For more interesting facts and the trend of collection for Tabung Harapan Malaysia, click here to read this Malay Mail report.

For a recap of what RM1.1 billion can buy, click here.