KUALA LUMPUR: An economist has welcomed Putrajaya’s proposals to address poverty in its mid-term review of the 11th Malaysia Plan but questions the extent to which the measures can be fulfilled.

Sulochana Nair, who is vice-chancellor of Binary University and a member of the World Bank’s panel on eradicating poverty, said the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of such plans was where the government often fell short.

“Malaysia is very good at planning. Excellent. We’re very good with programmes and we’re very good with policies.

“But whether those programmes and policies reach the ground, and their impact at the grassroots level – that is where we are very weak,” she told FMT after the panel discussion organised by the World Bank at Sasana Kijang last Friday.

Sulochana nevertheless commended the plans, calling them inclusive, and praised the government for “making all the right recommendations”.

She said Putrajaya’s challenge now would be to ensure that the implementation of these proposals was untainted by political or racial issues.

She also recommended that the government establish an independent body to monitor and evaluate the progress.

“They must ensure that if so-and-so on the ground was supposed to receive assistance, the person actually received it, or whether records were changed along the way or if there was any leakage of allocations.”

She warned that proper implementation of these measures would be expensive and involve a lot of effort.

She also noted that previous attempts to eradicate poverty had not met with much success despite the significant sums of money allocated for the purpose.

“In some of my past work, I’ve looked at macro policies and gone down to the grassroots to see whether those policies reached those for whom they were intended.

“In some instances, the programmes did not reach the targeted beneficiaries,” she said, claiming that those who did not need such assistance had benefited instead.

“There were others in greater need, but they were not getting it for various reasons. Either they weren’t visible or they were not captured by whatever mechanism was used to identify those in need.”

However, she also acknowledged the success of some initiatives like Amanah Ikhtiar, Malaysia’s largest microcredit organisation which regularly monitors its activities and holds weekly meetings.