We need to talk about poverty

Kampung Numbak in Sabah. — Bassam Khawaja

EARLIER this week, the former United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston raised alarms when he said that Malaysia appeared to backtrack on its previous commitment to revise the national poverty line (NPL), which currently stands at RM980 per household per month.

Although the government has since refuted this claim, and emphasised that a revision of the NPL is still underway, Alston remained skeptical on whether the revised NPL would accurately reflect reality.