UN: Malaysia’s poverty rate is higher than what is reported officially
PUCHONG: Malaysia’s claim that it has the world’s lowest national poverty rate is untrue as the official figure grossly undercounts poverty.
In a statement, United Nations human rights expert Phillip Alston said that when it comes to extreme poverty and human rights, Malaysia uses an extremely low poverty line that does not reflect the actual cost of living in the country.
He added that the government’s data also excludes vulnerable populations from its official statistics.
“While Malaysia has achieved an impressive growth in reducing poverty in the last 50 years, the official claim that poverty has been eradicated, or exists merely in small pockets in rural areas, is incorrect and has crippled policymaking,” said Alston, at the end of his recent 11-day visit to Malaysia.
According to Alston, Malaysia’s official poverty rate dropped from 49% in 1970 to just 0.4% in 2016.
However, the national poverty line of RM980 a household per month would see an urban family of four surviving on only RM8 per person, a day.
“This is tragically a low line for a country that is bent on attaining high income status, especially since a range of rigorous independent analyses have suggested a more realistic poverty rate of 16% to 20%.
“About nine percent of households in Malaysia survive on less that RM2,000 a month,” he said.
Alston said that the actual poverty rate in Malaysia is higher than what the government figures indicate and said it was time for the authorities to reassess on how they measure poverty so that the hardship many Malaysians suffer is not conjured out of existence by a statistical sleight of hand.
“Despite near-universal healthcare and high school enrolment rates for citizens, and a growing economy, large parts of the population are being left behind and many people living above the official poverty line are in fact in poverty,” he said.
Alston added that undercounting the poverty rate in Malaysia had also resulted in under-investment in poverty reduction exercise.
“And the people also have an inadequate social safety net that does not meet the people’s needs. This fragmented social protection system puts many people’s rights to food, housing and education at jeopardy,” he said.
Alston also highlighted that the poor in Malaysia, especially the Orang Asli community, suffered disproportionate violations of their civil and political rights.
“Indigenous peoples suffer much higher rates of poverty, and despite noteworthy commitments by the government to protect their rights, the customary land of indigenous communities remains under siege, jeopardising their livelihoods, food security and access to traditional medicines.
“I was troubled to hear state officials speak of the need for indigenous communities to ‘adapt’ and relocate to urban areas in order to secure their rights,” he said.
Alston added that non-citizens such as migrants, refugees and stateless people are also barred from attending public schools, face barriers from receiving healthcare and are often unable to work legally.
To make matters worse, these people are systematically excluded from official poverty statistics.
He then urged the government to urgently revise the way it measures poverty and bring it up in line with the nation’s cost of living.
Plus, the government should also include vulnerable non-citizen groups in its statistics.
“The government should also stop arbitrarily withholding information that is crucial to understanding poverty and inequality, such as household survey microdata,” he said.
While Alston acknowledged that Malaysia has made significant progress on a range of progressive commitments, the government should not dismiss the existence of the poor and marginalised.
“Instead, the government should step up efforts to uphold their rights,” he said.
Alston will present a comprehensive report with his conclusions and recommendations to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June next year.
On related matter, Parti Sosialis Malaysia secretary general A Sivarajan urged the Pakatan Harapan government to stop being in denial and adhere to the advice given by Alston.
“Is the government ready to bite the bullet and accept that the official statistics all this while have systematically excluded the millions living in poverty who are unable to make their ends meet?
“The government’s claims that it has eradicated poverty in the country is a farce.
“Alston’s report only proves that a large section of our society has been neglected without adequate safety net. At the same time, the government went around proudly claiming that Malaysia is middle income nation heading towards becoming a high-income country,” he said.
The PSM leader added that Alston did not highlight anything new as Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) itself had urged the government to review its way of measuring poverty in the past.
“According to KR , with the internationally accepted norm that relative poverty measured as 60% of the median income, KRI reported that relative poverty in Malaysia should be 22.2% of households.
‘And the unrealistic figure of RM980 poverty line income directly affects wages of our working Malaysians, as the figure is a key component in the minimum wage calculation formula.
“If a more realistic relative poverty line income is used, the average minimum wage would be close to RM1,800 as demanded by PSM and MTUC, not the meagre figure of RM1,100,” said Sivarajan.
By G Vinod
