Today I became lucky - my question was listed 4th in the Order Paper. There are usually more than 90 questions listed everyday, but only around 15 are answered orally during the 90 minute oral question session. The rest receive written answers which means that one doesn't get the opportunity to follow-up with a comment or question.
My question today was listed in the Order Paper as follows " Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (Sg Siput) to ask the Prime Minister to state the latest figure on the number of families with monthly incomes under RM 1000 and between RM 1001 - RM 2000, between RM 2001 - RM 3000 and then up to RM 20,000 per month."
Senator Datuk Amirsham b A Aziz, a Minister from the Prime Minister's Department answered that the latest household survey was carried out in 2007. From this survey which was based on nationwide sampling, it was found that
*Household Monthly Income Range* *% of families*
< RM 1000 8.6%
RM 1001 – 2000 29.4%
RM 2001 – 3000 19.8%
RM 3001 – 4000 12.9%
RM 4001 – 5000 8.6%
RM 5001 – 10,000 15.8%
> RM 10,000 4.9%
My follow-up question was "from the figures presented by the Minister, it is clear that the inequality between the richest 10% and the poorest 10% of society is a much bigger contributor to socio-economic inequality than the difference in the average household incomes of the various ethnic groups.
But in his speech tabling the Mid Term Review of the 9th Malaysian Plan on 26th June, the Honorable Prime Minister only focused on the differences in average household incomes between the races, and compared Bumiputra average household income to Chinese and to Indian average household income.
My supplementary question is, why does the government highlight inter-racial differences in income while downplaying the contribution of intra-racial inequality which in actual fact is the much more important cause of inequality in society?"
The Minister didn't appear prepared for this line of questioning, and mumbled something about the government having identified inter-racial income parity as well as rural-urban income parity as policy bjectives, needs to present the data in this way to be able to monitor the achievement of these policy objectives.
YB Dr Hj Mohd Puad b Zarkashi, the UMNO Member of Parliament for Batu Pahat, who is among the more logical and articulate members of the government bankbenchers, stood up to state that monitoring the inter-racial differences of income still is relevant in Malaysia and should be continued. The Minister agreed.
Dr. Kumar, PSM
Sungai Siput