The department said 4,634 households were recently classified as hardcore poor, adding that the Sabah Maju Jaya (SMJ) Secretariat was monitoring them, Bernama reported.

SMJ comes under the purview of the chief minister’s department.

“This group will be addressed under phase two of the Hardcore Poverty Eradication Programme,” the department said in a statement.

The focus on the newly registered hardcore poverty cases comes a day after chief minister Hajiji Noor said the state had successfully achieved its target of eliminating 22,510 of such cases in July, which he attributed to cooperation from government-linked companies such as Sawit Kinabalu.

Today, the department said the 22,510 cases were a “locked figure” that was set earlier this year.

A “locked figure” refers to the number of cases the state government targets to resolve by a certain date.

“The state government will announce the new ‘locked figure’ at the end of this year,” it said.

The poverty line income calculation for hardcore poor households in Sabah for 2022 stands at RM1,218 per household and RM288 per capita.