Kuala lumpur: The Ministry of Finance (MOF) has assured that continuous improvements are being made to the Sumbangan Asas Rahmah (SARA) system to handle rising user traffic, particularly during long weekends and in the lead-up to the Malaysia Day celebrations. Treasury secretary-general Datuk Johan Mahmood Merican said MyKasih has introduced measures to enhance the system's capacity and strengthen its daily troubleshooting process to address technical issues.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, Johan stated that the MyKasih system's basic capacity, initially set at 5,000 transactions per minute, has been increased to 15,000 transactions per minute to cope with the surge in purchases. He emphasized that enhancements are made daily to ensure smooth operations and that the system has not crashed despite the increased load. However, he noted that sudden surges could still cause delays or incomplete transactions.
Johan reported that 895,000 transactions were successfully processed on the first day of SARA's rollout on August 31, with numbers rising to 950,000 transactions yesterday. This demonstrates the system's robustness, although disruptions occurred at several points of sale. He assured that ongoing improvements and open consideration of options would ensure system stability during peak demand periods.
He also mentioned suggestions from supermarkets to limit active terminals to manage simultaneous transactions. The recent issues involving long queues and transaction failures were attributed solely to the MyKasih system's inability to handle unexpected demand spikes, not to MyKad scanning or other operational aspects.
Looking ahead, Johan indicated that the government would carefully plan future assistance programs to meet demand and transactional capacity needs. He advised recipients against rushing to redeem aid, as the RM100 credit is valid until December 31.
Dialog Corporate Social Responsibility (MyKasih) deputy chairman Jeffrey Gerard Perera highlighted Yayasan MyKasih's role in distributing aid through a cashless payment system based on MyKad. Since its inception in 2009, the system has expanded significantly, with MyKasih recipients growing from 700,000 in January to 22 million recently, reflecting its widespread adoption and effectiveness in delivering financial aid.