PETALING JAYA, Jan 23 — The poor should seek long term solutions to elevate their status in society.

Datuk Hafidzah Hassan, secretary of the urban well-being department under the purview of the Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government Ministry said while she welcomed assistance provided by charity groups in their bid to help the needy, she said the poor should seek help from government agencies to ensure they get adequate assistance.

“Most urban poor in the city face employment insecurities, lack of access to proper housing and even reliable access to food,” she said. 

“Charity organisations help in solving their day-to-day struggles and this is why these families rely on them. But while we acknowledge the assistance provided by these groups, it does not help the underprivileged to get out of their status.

“Relying on soup kitchens may seem harmless but it is a classic case of ‘give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’.” 

Hafidzah said people tend to forget the status of the poor is supposed to be temporary, and they must find a way out.

She said over 145,006 people from poor households in the country were registered under the national poverty data bank (eKasih) last year.

The database, which was set up in 2007, is used by government agencies to ensure there is fair distribution of assistance to the needy and to avoid overlapping aid programmes. The information in the database include  those in the hardcore poor, poor and vulnerable to poverty category.

“We rely on state level authorities to identify people of interest and the information is then relayed to the Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU) of the Prime Minister Office.

“Officers from the ICU will then conduct interviews with the head of the household and verify the situation and justify whether his or her family is eligible for aid,” she said.

While there were 166,475 who were delisted from the registry in 2015, the delisting was mainly attributed with the increase of the national poverty line income in 2014. In 2014, the government increased the poverty line income to RM930 in the peninsular and RM1,170 for Sabah and Labuan and RM990 in Sarawak. 

Those in the hardcore poor category are defined as those with household income under RM580 in the peninsular, RM710 in Sabah and Labuan and RM660 in Sarawak.

In 2012, the poverty line income was only RM830 in the peninsular and RM1,090 for Sabah and Labuan and RM920 for Sarawak.

“People might argue that the system is too strict, stating that if someone earns even RM10 more, then they are no longer considered to be in the poor bracket.

“But it should be noted, those who make RM1,500 and below will then be listed as those in the vulnerable bracket and we still monitor them closely,” she said.

She said a person’s change in status in the database could also be attributed to other factors including death, remarriage and the inability of being detected by government focus groups.

“While there are still chances for people to fall back into the poverty bracket over the years, many families have graduated from this bracket.

“The sort of aid given, however, is not limited to financial aid or household items. Families would be given priority to programmes conducted by the relevant ministries to help them out of their situation.

She said the database allows agencies to identify the obstacles faced by the poor and provide them the tools to overcome it and eventually move out of their situation.

“It is a monumental task for all the agencies involved. Hence, the simplest step of registering families into the system is actually the most difficult step of all.

“Communities need to communicate more often with local authorities and pin point the type of help they need,” she added.