As reported in the news item, according to government statistics, the four states with the most poor are Sabah with 30,852 poor and 15,732 hardcore poor; Sarawak, 26,487 poor and 12,326 hardcore poor; Terengganu, 10,187 poor and 3,572 hardcore poor; and Kelantan 9,067 poor and 3,053 hardcore poor. It’s a well-known fact that my home state Sabah has the most poor in the whole country. There are so many poverty eradication programmes around but are these programmes getting results?
What disturbs me greatly is that these four states with the most poor are the very four states producing petroleum (oil and gas, hydrocarbon) in Malaysia. It’s ironic, really. The federal and state (excluding Kelantan’s) governments should do something to overcome the poverty problem especially with the revenue gained from petroleum industry.
For the record, in 2007, federal revenue from petroleum (income taxes, royalties, export duties, sales taxes and PETRONAS dividends) was RM51.2 billion, of which RM20.6 billion was from petroleum income tax alone. Why not spend this amount in the states where the tax is collected from?
By the way, it is a not well-known fact that there is petroleum being produced offshore in Kelantan. The area known as the Malaysia-Thai Joint Area (MTJA), located in the Malaysian-Thai international waters, is offshore Kelantan state in Malaysia and Narathiwat province in Thailand. Daily gas production from MTJA started in 2005.
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