WHAT A LIAR! Poverty rate in Malaysia is 19% not 1.7% - Surendran tells Najib

I refer to PM Najib Razak's claim on 19 March in the government's transformation report that the poverty rate in Malaysia is now 1.7 per cent. This claim is incredible, baseless and a blatant fraud upon the rakyat.

Najib's absurdly small figure of 1.7 per cent is contradicted by the clear evidence of widespread poverty in poor urban and rural areas throughout the country.With prices rising and wages stagnant, Najib's claim makes neither statistical nor common sense. His claim defies the empirical evidence of rampant poverty all around us.

The real poverty rate in Malaysia is a shocking 19 per cent of all households. Our figure of 19 per cent is accurate and based upon the government's own Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey Report 2009 issued by the Department of Statistics. It is based upon half of median household income, which is an internationally accepted methodology in calculating the poverty rate.

Nonsensical claim

The figure of 19 per cent matches the ground reality and is believable in comparison with the poverty rate in other countries. In an advanced country like Japan, the reported poverty rate is 15.7 per cent; how can it be a mere 1.7 per cent in Malaysia?

Based upon this figure of 19 per cent, an astonishing 5.5 million Malaysians are now living in poverty. Poverty is a massive, debilitating and painful affliction. It is the great moral task of any government to alleviate and ultimately eradicate poverty. The poverty rate of 19 per cent shows the miserable failure of Najib's Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

The government's policies have fabulously enriched a small group of people with close connections to the BN, but left in poverty millions of hardworking ordinary Malaysians. Najib must act immediately and effectively to alleviate and reduce poverty, and stop resorting to statistical manipulation.

N SURENDRAN, VICE PRESIDENT

PARTI KEADILAN RAKYAT