Poor business sense to blame for the poverty of some, says Dr M
The prime minister says ‘certain communities’ are satisfied with earning just enough to cover their daily expenses, and do not make any effort to grow their businesses.
KUALA LUMPUR: Dr Mahathir Mohamad says “certain communities”, especially in urban areas, remain trapped in poverty as they do not know enough to expand their businesses.
Once these entrepreneurs earn enough money to cover their daily needs, he said, they become static.
“They do not make any effort to grow the business. We have to educate them on the need to expand their businesses so that they will come out of poverty in urban areas,” the prime minister said when asked to comment on the number of urban poor in the country.
He was speaking to reporters after launching Yayasan Sejahtera’s Community Development Fund here.
Yayasan Sejahtera was set up in 2009 to address hardcore poverty through collaboration with the private sector and government-linked companies.
Mahathir said urban poverty is a worldwide phenomenon which sees people from rural areas migrating to cities in the hope of finding jobs and earning a better income.
He said some come without proper qualifications and will only earn a low income if they do not allow themselves to be trained.
“They will constitute the urban poor,” he added.
He said the government could help by providing training and creating more job opportunities for such people.
However, he said wealth is generated through business.
“They have to learn how to do business, even small ones, so they can make more money for themselves,” he said.
In his speech earlier, Mahathir said Malaysia had made considerable progress in its efforts to eradicate poverty but acknowledged that problems still persist.
He said the country was no longer grappling only with absolute poverty but also with relative and urban poverty. He also spoke of increasing inequality among the people.
“While rural poverty continues to be critical, urban poverty needs policy attention and prescriptions,” he said.
“Persistent pockets of poverty continue to elude policy solutions in Malaysia.”
He added that the measurement of poverty in Malaysia had evolved over time.
While a single poverty line used to be enough, he said, Malaysia now recognises the multiple dimensions of poverty and has adopted the multi-dimensional poverty index or MPI.
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He said this would lead to the introduction of policies that give heed to relative poverty through its focus on the B40 group.