KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 — Sarawak’s share of the federal funds to help the hard-core poor under the 1Azam programme has been shrinking since 2010, and now the state has not even got its 2016 allocation yet.
Sarawak Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah was reported by the Sunday edition of The Borneo Post as saying the state has yet to receive any news from Putrajaya over its application for the federal that aims to cut poverty by encouraging entrepreneurship.
“In 2010, 7,500 individuals from Sarawak joined the 1Azam programme, each of whom was given RM10,000. Last year, the number of participants dropped to 5,000 and with only RM9,000 per person.
“For 2016, there is none yet. We try to request for more 1Azam funds, but we are still waiting for some good news,” she was quoted as saying.
She explained that while many of Sarawak’s poor lived in rural areas, there was also a recent trend of them moving to the cities resulting in an increase in urban poverty.
“Some of them are yet to be equipped with skills — a situation that deprives them of job opportunities.”
The Batu Kawah United People’s Party (UPP) chairman Liu Thian Leong also called on Putrajaya to ramp up its poverty eradication efforts as the number of poor Sarawakians was on the rise despite improved economic conditions there.
“I hope charitable organisations and philanthropists would continue to give cash and kind to help the poor in our society,” he was quoted as saying by the same paper.
The 1Azam programme has come under fire previously from even the Auditor-General. A 2013 report released in November 2014 revealed that half its participants were unable to add even RM300 to their monthly household incomes under the scheme that has cost RM1.3 billion in public funds.
The 1Azam scheme was in the spotlight in 2013 after a former aide of Wanita Umno chief Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil, who was formerly women, family and community development minister, was questioned for misappropriating funds from the programme.
