KOTA KINABALU: Sabah’s actual hardcore poverty numbers might not be as high as the official figures have it because they appear to include those who are deceased, says Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun.
The state Finance Minister said the Sabah government needed to go through the statistics to determine the actual situation, adding that many others who did not qualify were also listed in the database.
“We realised that there are about 4,000 people who are dead but still part of the statistics,” Masidi told reporters after attending the state-level Kaamatan festival closing ceremony in Penampang near here on Friday.
The Sabah Maju Jaya secretariat, he said, had been going to the ground to locate and identify people in the hardcore poor bracket.
Masidi said the team found a number of people who did not deserve to be listed in the group.
In his speech when closing the Kaamatan festival, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had set the end of July as the deadline to end hardcore poverty in Sabah.
He also said he was confident that the issue could be resolved as the number of heads of households in the hardcore poor category in Sabah had dropped to just 9,000 from 20,000 previously.
Masidi said there were ongoing programmes by state agencies to hit this target.
He said government-owned companies had been instructed to prioritise hiring capable people from poor families.
He said this could help lift people out of the poverty bracket.
