BY FMT Staff
KOTA KINABALU: The federal government’s E-Kasih system has identified 15,293 families in Sabah who are living below the RM540 a month poverty level .They were among 44,634 poor families nationwide, who had registered with the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry’s E-Kasih programme.
The families were from Sabah, Sarawak, Terengganu, Kelantan, Kedah and Johor.
Poverty in Sabah has become a politically crippling issue for the Barisan Nasional government.
According to the the Sabah-based Common Interest Group Malaysia (CigMa), about 1.8 million or 60% of the 3.25 million population in Sabah live in poverty.
In five decades, Sabah, which was once the riches state in Malaysia, is now the poorest.
Much of it has been attributed to the exponential population increase and the “Malaysianisation” of illegal immigrants during former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s reign.
While the BN-led state government claims that poverty levels have progressively been reduced, private non-governmental organisations and opposition leaders differ on the issue.
Serious issue
Yesterday, Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, who admitted that poverty in Sabah was a matter of grave concern, said the government had deployed the National Population and Family Development Board Malaysia (LPPKN) officers to access the hardcore poor and low income families.
“We’ve set aside RM6.9 million for the LPPKN programmes in six states to help the poor.
“We will be looking at various issues. One is finance. We will have to find out which segment they fall under -- the low-income group or hardcore poor.
“Next, we want to know whether the head of the house is able to work or if the family needs aid,” she said.
She addded that LPPKN will also be identifying household members who need training, job placements or if they are keen to do business.
“We will find out their needs before helping them," she said.
Shahrizat said it is a start to tackling a serious issue.
“We’ve been evolving our approach... since the 2008 general election... I was shocked when I lost in Lembah Pantai.
“But it was a good lesson and since we are still governing the country, it is a god-given opportunity to make amends and improve ourselves and the public service delivery system,” she said.
On allegations that her ministry was incompetent, she said: “We are not a department. It's a big ministry... yes, sometimes we make mistakes too, but we rectify them just as quickly.”
