Zouhair Rosli, a consultant at a research firm, called for recognition that poverty is relative to the general economic conditions in a given society at a given time.
If relativity were to be taken into the account, he told FMT, Malaysia’s poverty rate would be 16%, not 0.4% as recorded in official statistics.
“We’re not talking about conditions in the poorest countries in the world, where even obtaining clean water is almost impossible,” he said.
In contemporary Malaysia, he added, a person could be considered poor even if he owned a TV set or a car.
“If we are talking about the 60s or 70s, then yes, a TV or a car is a luxury. But nowadays it’s not a luxury anymore.”
Last week, Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on poverty and human rights, disputed the Malaysian government’s claim that it had nearly eradicated poverty, saying the “true poverty rate” in the country was about 15%.
Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has since said the government would study the reports Alston cited and review its measurement of poverty if necessary.
Zouhair said he had done a study with Unicef in which it was found that 7% of households in Kuala Lumpur’s low-cost flats were living in poverty, whereas official statistics put the city’s poverty rate at 0%.
“We are not saying that the poverty rate in KL should be 7%, but our current PLI (poverty line income) is so low that a significant segment of our society, especially in big cities, has been excluded from the official statistics,” he said.
Malaysia’s PLI, at US$5 a day, is US$3.75 higher than a goal for sustainable development set by the UN, but Zouhair said the UN’s intention was to anchor poverty lines in poor countries.
He noted that the World Bank had placed Malaysia in its list of upper-middle income countries and said the country’s PLI should therefore be higher than the UN threshold.
He said Malaysia’s PLI was much lower than the PLIs of several other upper-middle income countries.
“Take Hungary for example. Its GDP per capita is slightly lower than Malaysia’s, but its PLI (US$8 a day) is almost two times higher for a family of four.”
Zouhair called for the use of relative poverty measurement in official statistics so that efforts to turn Malaysia into a developed country could be realistically assessed. He noted that it is the measurement used by member countries of the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
“We cannot afford to exclude the vulnerable and marginalised households in our measurement as things we fail to measure will usually go unsolved,” he said.
Suhakam commissioner Madeline Berma echoed Zouhair’s call, saying many who were above the current official poverty line were vulnerable to falling into poverty.
“If we are using RM980 as the poverty line income, the lower-middle class will not be classified as poor, but they are at risk of becoming poor,” she said.
“Unlike the poor and others in the B40 group, people in the lower-middle class do not qualify for all the poverty alleviation programmes.”