Better to retrain urban poor than BR1M, govt told

Barjoyai Bardai says increasing BR1M to help the poor in towns and cities is not a viable solution.

Barjoyai maintains that BR1M is just a temporary help.(Facebook pic)

PETALING JAYA: Cash handouts such as under the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) cannot fix the problems faced by the urban poor, says an economist.

Barjoyai Bardai said BR1M was a short-term solution, even if the government increased the amount to help the poor in the cities.

“As a medium and long term solution, we need to come up with a more permanent structure of economy,” Barjoyai, who teaches at Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, told FMT.

He said a more viable solution would be to increase the sources of income.

He said even increasing the minimum wage would be counter productive.

“The major and long-term solution is to have a serious retraining program to these groups, so that they will have new skills to generate higher income, and to venture into new sources of income,” he said.

He was asked to comment on a recent statement by Deputy Finance Minister Othman Aziz, that the government would study whether to increase the amount of BR1M handouts for those in the cities.

Barjoyai maintains that BR1M is just a temporary help,

He said, the government should instead retrain the urban poor to prepare them for the next phase of Putrajaya’s industrialisation plan, preparing them with new skills and expertise.

This, said Barjoyai, will allow people to get better job opportunities.

He gave an example of South Korea’s electronic industry, which was on a decline some 15 years ago. But the sector was boosted after housewives were trained to work on assembly lines.

He said that similarly, Malaysia could retrain people in rural areas.

“At the same time, they can generate side income for their families,” he added. -FMT