Over 40% of Malaysia's poor in Sabah, says global report

KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia's widening network of poverty stricken people are centered in Sabah, according to the latest World Bank Report (WBR).
Noting that Sabah remains the poorest state in the country, the WBR's 2010 Malaysia Economic Monitor (MEM) Report showed that Sabahans continue to struggle, with higher incidences of poverty in outskirts of towns.
"(There are) deep pockets of poverty here in Sabah," said the bank's East Asia and Pacific Region Human Development Sector director Emmmanuel Jimenez who was in the state capital to present the report on Wednesday.
"Sabah has about 10% of the Malaysian population but more than 40% of all poor people in Malaysia live in Sabah," he said.
He said that if one compared this figure to that of Selangor, which has about 25% of the population, the percentage of poor people was less than 10%.
"Whatever poor people remaining in Malaysia, many of them are here in Sabah and most of them live in the rural areas … groups such as the



Rungus, Suluk and Orang Sungai.
"According to the statistics they (Rungus, Suluk and Orang Sungai) remain very high (in the poverty bracket)," he said.
He said the country's Vision 2020 goal of achieving a high-income status would require a higher growth rate than what has been achieved so far.
It would also, he said, require the country to ensure that the benefits are shared by all strata of society.
The lack of social indicators as well as disparity between urban and rural folk, he said, were two aspects of inequality that the bank had identified.
"I would imagine that once you move away from the coastal areas to the interior, the poverty rates remain very high.
"Just from our own experience coming from the airport to the hotel, you don't see poverty but the statistics say there's a lot and there are huge disparities."
Poor salaries
He also pointed out that Malaysia's vision of a prosperous country through productivity could be affected because workers are paid poor salaries.
"Those who are working maybe poor not because they are not working (hard) but working in low-paying jobs. So the question is how to increase productivity?" he asked.
Philip Schellekens, the bank's senior economist for the region and lead author of the report, however said that Malaysia had recorded tremendous successes in poverty reduction in the past four years.
On the state's economic performance, he said that Sabah had been insulated from global developments and had not been exposed to the volatility observed in the manufacturing sector.
The MEM report suggested a three-pronged approach to meeting the country's aspirations:
* Raising economy-wide opportunities by strengthening the investment climate and revitalising the labour markets;
* Promoting investment in human capital by strengthening education and vocational skills training;
* Providing well-targeted social protection to help those who cannot help themselves.
Source: FreeMalaysiaToday.Com