Amirsham A Aziz, minister in the Prime Minister's Department, says that it means a household income that is sufficient for only the basic necessities like food, clothes, rental, utilities, transport and communication, health, education and recreation. It does not include luxury items like sending children to private schools or tuition classes, receiving treatment from private clinics or having their meals outside.
What is the present poverty line in Malaysia? He was quoted in today's New Straits Times that it's about RM800, which translates to a poverty rate of 3.7 percent today, but Aliran had said that the government's initial definition was RM550.
But according to him too, raising the poverty level from RM800 to RM1,500 per household will also increase the poverty line from 3.7 percent to 24.3 percent.
So? What did he hope to prove by saying all that? That he'd rather not re-define the poverty level to RM1,500 per household for fear of increasing the number of households that are living in poverty? I hope he wasn't implying that the government preferred to turn a blind eye to people in poverty just to make a statistic look good.
What, lah!
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