PUTRAJAYA, July 3 — Back in Cabinet after a three-year hiatus, Umno’s Tan Sri Noh Omar is determined to prove his worth to the Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership by tapping into the opposition’s urban strongholds.

The way to do this, according to newly-appointed housing, urban wellbeing and local government minister, is by addressing urban poverty, a problem he characterised as more complex in nature and far worse than rural poverty.

"Urban poverty is worse than poverty in rural areas. When I see the allocation (for government aid), those given to urban folk are also given to the rural community, but those given to the rural community are not given to urban folk,” the Selangor Umno chief said in a media interview.

Noh also voiced concern over income inequality in Malaysia and said there was a need to address this disparity.

"A salary of RM3,000 in the city is very different from the outskirts,” he pointed out.

According the Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey, however, Malaysia’s Gini coefficient, which is the measure of income inequality, declined by three percentage points from 0.431 in 2012 to 0.401 in 2014, indicating an improvement in household wealth distribution.

The incidence of poverty in urban and rural areas also decreased in 2014 to 0.3 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively from 1.0 per cent and 3.4 per cent, the survey on the Statistics Department’s website said. There is currently no available data for 2015.

But Noh believes there was more to be done. Reducing poverty and suturing the rural-urban income gap, he pointed, would also score brownie points for BN among the urban folk.

Noh, who is also Tanjung Karang MP, conceded that Umno still lacked urban support, especially in Selangor, which is currently held for the second term by the federal opposition.

"If you see, in the rural areas, the Umno fort is still strong as compared to the city because they (rural communities) see that they always get help, while those in urban areas get help but are not aware of it.

"So I need to think about how we can hand aid to those in the urban areas and make them aware of it,” he said.

"We need to explain and promote these programmes. We need to bring a positive effect to us (BN),” he added.

Noh was mindful that he only has two years as housing minister until federal polls are called, but said that he already has a list of priorities he intends to achieve.

He pledged to continue the work of his predecessor in the ministry, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, adding that he would also look into how to improve certain initiatives.

"There are programmes in the system to rid of urban poverty but I want to get the details of certain aspects of these programmes that can be improved on,” he said.

Other issues the minister intends to tackle is the maintenance of low-cost flats and making sure its residents have easy access to sufficient amenities like 1Malaysia clinics and sundry shops.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced a Cabinet reshuffle last week that included the appointment of two new federal ministers and four deputy ministers.

Aside from Noh, Datuk Johari Abdul Ghani was promoted to second finance minister to replace Datuk Seri Husni Hanadzlah who resigned.