PETALING JAYA: The government will study a claim made by a United Nations (UN) representative on the poverty rate in the country, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
He said the government would only review the methodology to ascertain poverty levels if necessary.
“We will study what they say to find out whether it is true or not,” he told reporters after attending the Malaysian Trailblazers Foundation 4th anniversary and fund raising dinner here, yesterday.
Philip Alston, a UN human rights expert, had claimed that Malaysia’s poverty level was far higher than reported.
He said official figures were vastly inaccurate and did not reflect realities on the ground.
The special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights said the official numbers relied on outdated measures, with the poverty line remaining at the same level for decades despite increasingly high costs of living.
He also claimed that analyses done by independent groups had suggested that Malaysia had "significant poverty" and that its true poverty rate was about 15 per cent.
Alston had urged Malaysia to reassess its methods for measuring poverty and take into account vulnerable groups excluded from the data such as stateless families, migrant workers, and refugees.
Malaysia’s official poverty rate is at 0.4 per cent in 2016.