URBAN POVERTY NEEDS MORE PRIORITY

I wish to commend Maria Chin Abdullah for her pertinent article – Uplift the Poor Now, in todays Sun newspaper.

Her article raises urban poverty issues that are relevant for all the mass media and all Malaysians to review and to provide solutions, with greater priority!

For too long our economic planning  has focussed on  measures to reduce  Rural Poverty. This is still important. But we  can take pride and satisfaction that  national  poverty  has  been considerably reduced from about 50% of our population at Merdeka in 1957, to a low  figure of about 1%, as of now.

In the past the poverty was mainly in the rural areas. But with the steady migration from the rural to the urban areas, urban poverty has become  more significant   in terms of numbers and the greater challenges faced by the urban poor.

For instance, the urban poor have to buy all their food and cannot subsist on farming and fishing as in the rural areas. Transport, housing   and health costs are more  expensive for the urban poor. Indeed   the quality of life for the urban poor could well be generally lower than   that the rural poor.

This thesis is worth studying  and the Economic Planning  Unit  and the Treasury could  undertake an  updated  survey, to  innovate new  policies and measures  to better combat,urban poverty  as well as  do more for  the rural poor.

Maria Chin has indeed drawn public attention  once again to the great concern we all have for the widening gap between the  Rich and the Poor  in our country. The Prime Minister Tun Mahathir has recently been emphasizing the need to do more to narrow the wealth gap , but  the new  socio economic policies need to  give higher priority  to  bring about more  solutions to solve the problems of  the poor, before   those poor of the Bottom 40% income group , become more  restless. This can cause more insecurity and   much social instability.

Our economic and budget planning and implementation should also become more balanced. We should be concerned more with anti poverty problems and the fulfillment of our UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals, that the earlier preoccupation with higher Economic Growth rates.

We have to ask ourselves, more and more, who is benefitting from more economic growth? Are they Big Business or the Small Medium Businesses and the poor in the rural and Urban populations.

Furthermore, in dealing with increasing the  welfare of the Poor, both rural and  the new urban poor, we have to be much more multiracial in our strategies. Otherwise   we can cause National Disunity rather than achieve our national aspirations of promoting  greater national unity at a faster pace.

Even our Prime Minister and most Malaysians have expressed anxiety over the weak national unity.  Much of the cause of some disunity is poverty. Reducing the income gaps should  therefore be given greater priority  under the new Government.

Social Safety Net and the Budget!

Maria Chin has proposed a  deeper and wider Social Security Net to look after the poor  more generously . The Minimum Wage  of Rm 1,100 per month is claimed to be “hardly adequate for the poor“. This could well be a correct observation!   It is suggested that there should be “liveable incomes“ or a “Living Wage“, that should be higher than the current minimum wage  that was only recently revised upward.

But how much more can we afford to raise the Minimum Wage to a Living Wage?

We are now  facing the challenges of a persistent Budget Deficit and a large Debt Burden.

So while some  improvements can be made to the Social Safety Net – there are  serious constraints  to do more for the poor  at this time .

The Answer to solving Poverty

The way forward is thus, to raise priority spending and to do more  for the urban poor. This can be done but at the expense of slowing down the implementation of  some of our major  development projects and programmes. The big Government projects could  be  delayed and phased out over a longer  period of implementation.

Also, those in the G40 Group of the poor, need to be given better education that could raise their earning capacity. That is why more Technical and Vocational Training should be introduced in schools to ensure a higher proportion of school graduates are employable. These graduates should also be “Self Employable“.

They don`t have to depend on the Government to give them jobs. The Government is not in a position to add more staff to its already large Public Service of 1.6 million employee  or more!

The same arguments can also be used for raising the employability and incomes of our College and University Graduates. Many of them cannot find jobs or suitable work, because of their unsuitable training. The Lack of English proficiency also handicaps them through no fault of their own. They have become frustrated and the victims, because of faulty policies and  poor implementation. All these weaknesses derived from the past, need to be rectified soon.

Conclusion

We need a new Red Book or a New Blue Print to fight urban Poverty!

Maria Chin and many NGO`s have highlighted the needs of the urban poor. They have also underlined the need to do more to alleviate the sufferings of the urban as well as the rural poor.

The priority  has now however to be  developed to do more  for the urban poor The rural poor   have the traditional food and shelter and  basic  health and  other Government facilities , that have been  provided over many years , to make their rural  living less strained and stressful now.  The urban poor  often face  more painful problems now!

The Government  has to plan and implement new priority policies under this new Government to do much more to help the rising urban poor.

It will be useful to introduce a new Red Book  or Blue Print  to  break the back of the  sensitive Urban Poverty  problems that can cause  more crime and social unrest now and especially in the future.

Government has therefore to move faster to reduce Urban Poverty and civil society could supplement Government policies  to do so!

Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam

Chairman Asli Center of Public Policy Studies.

January 17th, 2019