Budget fails to address urban poverty

By Athi Shankar - Free Malaysia Today

GEORGE TOWN: The Tanjung Tokong Malay village residents today hit out at Budget 2011 for its perceived failure to address escalating urban poverty.

Village association chairman Mohamad Salleh Yahaya regretted tha the Najib administration had only emphasised on rural poverty and development in Sabah and Sarawak in the budget.

He said the budget did not reveal any concrete allocations to carry out comprehensive policies to eradicate prevailing urban poverty especially among the Malay and Indian communities.

“The budget seems to be an election budget designed to fish votes and maintain Barisan Nasional 's power in the next election,” Salleh told FMT here today.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who is also the finance minister, unveiled the budget last Friday.

Salleh indicated that the BN federal government budget prioritised popular votes rather than addressing real poverty issues in urban areas such as in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Johor Bahru.

He said since BN needed votes from rural areas and the Borneo states for its political survival, Najib had focused the national financial resources in these areas.

“The budget has deprived urbanites, mostly Malays and Indians, of much needed funds to upgrade their standard of living in wake of rapidly rising cost,” he added.

The Human Resources Ministry study revealed that a staggering 34% or 440,000 of the country’s 1.3 million domestic workers were living under the poverty line, earning below RM700 per month.

The National Employment Return (NER) study last year made strong recommendations to the Najib administration to increase wages considerably especially after the ministry realised that the nation’s remuneration system cannot rely solely on market forces.

The World Bank study discovered that the country’s wage trend only enjoyed 2.6% in past decade compared with escalating cost of living, especially in rapidly developing urban areas.

Urban poor makes up 60% of the urban population in the country.

Heritage issue not addressed

Salleh also lamented about Najib’s failure to address the Tanjung Tokong Malay village heritage issue, despite constant pleas from the association over the years to the Putrajaya administration to intervene to save their village from extinction.

He said the association had expected the budget to allocate a sizeable fund to redevelop the village into a heritage Malay settlement under the 10th Malaysia Plan.

“But the Najib administration showed strong pro-corporate inclination,” he said.

It was Najib’s late father, Abdul Razak Hussein, who as prime minister launched the scheme to restructure, redevelop and upgrade the village under the Urban Development Authority (UDA) in 1972. The idea was to create a Malay settlement in George Town.

However, the idea got strayed as UDA subsequently relocated many villagers to completely transform the area into a new township. In 2008, it even declared the remaining 1,500 villagers as squatters.

Salleh alleged the village has now been earmarked for demolition to pave the way for UDA’s money-making commercial development spin, which was a clear drift from its original project plan.

He cited the Malay restructured urban village, Gugusan Manjoi in Ipoh as a point of reference to show that the premier can intervene and save the Tanjung Tokong village.

He said Gugusan Manjoi was restructured and rebuilt in 2007 under a RM10-million development package through personal initiative taken by former premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and former Perak menteri besar Tajol Rosli Mohd Ghazali.

Salleh called on Najib to emulate Abdullah on Tanjung Tokong, especially given that it was his late father who initiated the re-development project for the village.

“After all, Najib is the prime minister for 1Malaysia, not just for rural areas, Sabah and Sarawak,” he said