PUTRAJAYA: Non-Malays, mainly those living in urban areas in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, are among the biggest groups yet to register on the Central Database Hub (Padu), says the Economy Minister.
Rafizi Ramli said constituencies like Seputeh, Segambut and Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur had the highest number of residents who have yet to register on Padu.
Urging all Malaysians to register their information before the March 31 deadline, he said the feedback was obtained from a mapping exercise done to identify areas in the country with little or no Padu registrations.
He said there were 4,752 areas across the nation with residents having yet to register with Padu.
“In Kuala Lumpur, the majority (of those unregistered) are those living in condominiums and flats.
“My plea to all non-Malay friends is to register soon as we only have two weeks left,” he told a press conference at the ministry headquarters at Menara Prisma here yesterday.
Rafizi said registering with Padu would reduce the risk of being excluded from any government assistance for non-Malays, such as aid for the elderly or those with special needs.
“More often than not, non-Malay residents were not aware about assistance or programmes available to them because the approach before was to have people apply to a government department.
“This is an opportunity to get included in the overall planning of government programmes because the idea of Padu is that rather than wait for households in need to come and seek assistance, we can identify them straight away,” he added.
The minister said Selangor recorded the highest number of areas with no registrations in Padu at 1,282 followed by Kuala Lumpur (992), Sarawak (765) and Sabah (620).
Even though the residents from some of the areas were identified with the B40 and lower M40 groups, Rafizi said there was no data of these people receiving any government assistance according to previous databases.
Since there is only two weeks left till the March 31 deadline, Rafizi said the Padu team would intensify their work to increase registration on the government database in the areas with low registrations.
He added that his ministry would conduct a town hall session on March 23 at the MBSA Convention Centre aimed at providing information on the benefits of Padu as well as to secure registrations from the public in areas with low registrations in Selangor.
“This session will be attended by MPs, assemblymen, district officers, mayors, council presidents and representatives of joint management bodies,” he said.
As of March 17, a total of 5.43 million people have updated their data on Padu since its launch on Jan 2, Rafizi added.
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