NCP wants to review nation’s definition of poverty

KAJANG: The National Council of Professors (NCP) wants to carry out a study on the definition of poverty used in country so far, to determine if it is still relevant or otherwise.

NCP president and chief executive officer Datuk Dr Raduan Che Rose said he saw an urgent need to conduct the study to find out about the difference in hardcore poverty, rates recorded in the country compared to what was recorded by foreign analysts.

“We will also discuss with the Statistics Department to look at the figures we have collected, how they ( poverty rates were measured and assessed) were carried out till we reached 0.4 per cent, but outsiders (analysts) had said that the poverty rate was at 15 per cent.

“We will also conduct further research and field work to obtain more tangible empirical evidence so that whatever issues we raise will have a back-up in terms of empirical data and so on,” he said after attending a pre-congress NCP meeting here yesterday.

Earlier, United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof Philip Alston claimed that Malaysia had ‘significant poverty’ and its true poverty rate was at 15 per cent.

However Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali said the 0.4 per cent poverty rate was calculated according to internationally accepted standards, based on the second edition of the Canberra Group Handbook on Household Income Statistics (2011) published by the United Nations (UN) .

Raduan said the government would also have to accept the fact that the rapid urbanisation process had also contributed to the urban poverty phenomenon, which NCP would among other things, take note of in its studies. — Bernama