KOTA KINABALU, Dec 17 — Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor today acknowledged that hardcore poverty still exists in the state, despite official data and reports claiming the category had been eradicated as of October.
Hajiji said poverty figures were “highly dynamic” and depended on data collected by district offices, village heads and local committees, conceding that some families who remained in hardship may fall outside the reporting system.
“The number of poor people is always changing. There are still many who are poor, but they may not be included in the data provided by district offices and the relevant departments,” Hajiji told the Sabah State Legislative Assembly.
He was responding to a question from Senallang assemblyman Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, who challenged state government claims that hardcore poverty in Sabah had fallen to zero, warning that such declarations could create a misleading public perception.
Shafie said many rural residents he had met survived on subsistence farming, with irregular incomes that could be as low as RM1 or RM100 a month, and asked whether poverty statistics were based on thorough field studies or limited reporting through village leadership.
“When the government reports that poverty is already at ‘zero’, it creates an impression that worries me, because hardcore poverty has not disappeared. There are still poor people struggling in Sabah,” Shafie said.
In his reply, Hajiji stressed that the state government was not claiming poverty no longer existed, explaining that the “zero hardcore poverty” status was determined based on the Poverty Line Income (PGK) threshold.
Under current definitions, households earning below RM1,218 per month are classified as hardcore poor, while those earning above the threshold remain categorised as poor. From 2026, the benchmark will be revised using the 2024 poverty line, raising the threshold to RM1,257 per month.
“Sometimes we help a family and they move out of hardcore poverty, but when they lose their job or face other difficulties, they fall back into that category,” Hajiji said, adding that this made poverty figures fluid and subject to change.
He said the state had channelled assistance to nearly 100,000 recipients through programmes targeting both poor and hardcore poor households, including the Sentuhan Kasih Rakyat, or Syukur, programme, which provides RM300 a month in aid.
The assistance is implemented in four phases, disbursed once every three months, amounting to RM900 per recipient per cycle.
However, Hajiji agreed with Shafie that on-the-ground realities did not always align with official statistics, noting that many Sabahans continued to complain of unemployment and the lack of steady income.
“We will continue to refine and update the data from time to time,” he said, adding that special task forces had been established at the state and district levels to improve the identification of vulnerable groups and delivery of assistance.
Last month, Sabah State Development Office director Samsul Dollah said there were no Sabahan households under the hardcore poverty line since August.
In the poor household category, Sabah recorded 55,782 poor families involving 225,427 household members, placing the state among the three states with the highest poverty rates in Malaysia.
