KUALA LUMPUR: According to Associate Prof Dr. Firdausi Suffian, senior lecturer from Sabah Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), the minimum wage rate should be balanced with the current high cost of living; hence it should be increased.
The minimum wage should also be increased to boost economic activities, according to the country’s economic growth, which will contribute to the effort to reduce the poverty rate in the country.
“This is important, (because) if the salary remains the same, the M40 and B40 groups will be left out of getting access to a good life,” told him when contacted by Bernama TV.
The Deputy Rector of the Academic Affairs Division of UiTM Sabah Branch, Firdaus, said that he welcomed the government’s initiative to centralize several states that needed to be given focus regarding the government’s commitment to eliminate the hardcore poor in the country.
“Sabah, with a 25 percent of poverty rate which is the highest poverty rate should be given focus and government’s intervention to reduce the income gap between the people in the state and in the peninsula.
According to Firdausi, the gap in income between people in Sabah and the peninsula is becoming more significant with slow wage growth causing thousands of young people from the state to migrate to the peninsula to work.
He adds that 1:4 Sabahans are poor and because of that, there are even those who graduate with a Master’s Degree willing to work as clerks because they want to get a job in the Peninsula.
When discussing the issue of the nation’s hardcore poor, Firdausi added that as the Youth and Sports Ministry’s Panel of Expect, the focus is on the hardcore poor’s access to healthy food, housing, and medical services.
He argued that rather than relying solely on an individual’s income, the socioeconomic status of a population should be assessed and determined in relation to their access to basic needs.
Datuk Tengku Azman Tengku Zainol Abidin, the head of the Bukit Bintang UMNO Division, concurred with Firdausi on the minimum wage rate and proposed that more employment opportunities be made available in rural areas.
He claimed that by doing this, the rights and possibilities of rural citizens who were compelled to move to the city to make a living would be balanced.
According to him, the agricultural industry is a lucrative one, thus it is crucial for the federal and state governments to work together to maximize the use of vacant land to advance modern agriculture.
