KUALA LUMPUR – The government is drafting policies and strategies in the 12th Malaysia Plan to tackle poverty and improve the rakyat’s well-being, the Dewan Negara was told today.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy) Arthur Joseph Kurup said a multi-pronged approach will be taken to achieve this.
“To tackle poverty and upgrade the service delivery mechanism at the grassroots level, the government will strengthen the bottom-up approach among the stakeholders.
"The approach will therefore be improved through the involvement of the public and community-based organisations. Authorities will also be empowered to identify and reduce pockets of poverty at the community level,” he added.
He said that these include efforts to raise income and purchasing power of B40 households, via initiatives like the Urban Economic Empowerment Programme and Income Increment Programme.
The government was also improving access to basic needs such as education, health and housing, as well as promoting entrepreneurship and access to financing such as the micro credit financing provided by TEKUN Nasional, he said.
“(Another approach is) improving the social protection system by introducing an integrated and comprehensive social protection system framework, including the PeKa B40 healthcare protection scheme,” Arthur said in reply to Senator Dr Nuing Jeluing’s query during the debate on the Supply Bill 2021.
Nuing wanted to know how many households fell under the national poverty line income (PLI) of RM2,208 per household – revised from RM980 previously – and measures being taken to overcome poverty.
On this, Arthur said that 2019’s rate of absolute poverty was 5.6% or 405,441 households compared to 7.6%, involving 525,743 households, in 2016,” he said.
Meanwhile, replying to a supplementary question from Nuing, he said the government had implemented several initiatives to improve the living standards of people in Sabah and Sarawak.
He said these include increasing intake of students into high performance schools and training institutions, cultivating entrepreneurship, as well as providing assistance in financing and marketing. – Bernama, December 22, 2020
