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Appalling ignorance of a minister on report on Perak poverty

MP SPEAKS Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan should ask for a lesson in learning statistics from the Department of Statistics, rather than ask the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) to explain its latest report to the Perak state government

Yesterday, Rahman, who is the minister in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU), was quoted in the media as saying that it was “unreasonable” and “not logical” for the KRI State of the Households II Report to place Perak as the second poorest state in Malaysia.

It was further reported that Rahman had said that reports and statistics that are accurate needed to be supplied to KRI so that its report can be corrected.

Rahman (photo) also said that he has directed the EPU director-general to call for a meeting between KRI and the Perak government to explain the statistics in the report.

I am truly appalled at the ignorance of the minister in charge of the EPU, as demonstrated by his statements on the KRI report.

The data showing that Perak had the second highest number of households earning less than RM6,000 a month was obtained from the Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey 2014, which was carried out by the Department of Statistics (chart below).

The same Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey also shows Perak having the second highest number of households earning less than RM2,000 a month at 21.3 percent, after Kelantan at 31.4 percent (see figures below).

Source: Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey 2014, Department of Statistics

Rahman may be right in saying that Perak may not be the second poorest state in Malaysia, since there are other ways of measuring income per household or per person, such as mean and average household incomes (Perak came in third from the bottom in 2014) and median wages (seventh from the bottom in 2015) and average wages (fifth from the bottom in 2015).

But to question the KRI report, which is based on statistics sourced from the Department of Statistics (which falls under the purview of the minister in charge of the EPU, the last time I checked) shows a level of ignorance and incompetence that is astounding, even by Rahman’s standard.

Instead of asking the EPU director-general to call for a meeting between KRI and the Perak state government, Rahman should instead ask the Department of Statistics to brief him on the Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey 2014 and how to understand the statistics in this survey.

In fact, I am confident that one of the Perdana Fellows interning under this minister can brief him on the basics of statistics and how to understand such reports.


ONG KIAN MING is the Member of Parliament for Serdang.

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