Govt drafts new ways to eradicate poverty

The government will formulate various new strategies and methods in an effort to eradicate poverty among the people, in line with current circumstances, said Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa.

He said the move included efforts to formulate appropriate policies and programmes through the 12th Malaysia Plan (RMK12) as well as the annual budget to be tabled following the revision of the poverty line income limit (PGK) from RM980 to RM2,208.

"We challenge ourselves as a government. If we want to take the safe path, we stick to the figures, then the number or target group will be smaller. But now we volunteer, we review the national poverty line.

"That means, the government will take greater responsibility to hold a poverty eradication programme involving more families," he told a press conference after handing over offer letters to 141 Daily Part-Time Workers (PSH) at the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), today.

In this regard, he said the government would identify people from the poor families who truly qualified to be assisted.

Earlier, in his speech, Annuar said the Federal Territories Ministry had introduced five additional Wilayah Cakna Initiatives to help those affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Annuar said the five initiatives were MYJobs @ Wilayah, MYGrocer @ Wilayah, MYSchoolBus @ Wilayah, MYMedic @ Wilayah and MYFood @ Wilayah.

"We are not talking rhetorically but we will really be launching them soon like the MYSchoolBus programme for us to give to the truly deserving and poor, other than MYGrocer, whereby we bring goods from supermarkets to People's Housing Project (PPR) for sale at cheap prices, '' he said.

The offer letters to the PSH was part of efforts to fill of 500 positions in various departments in DBKL.

To date, 479 PSH recruitments had been made encompassing Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (328), Diploma (134) and Bachelor's Degree (17).

-- BERNAMA