COVID-19 In Malaysia: Can The New Poor Cope In The Post-Pandemic Era? | Insight | Poverty In Asia

[Music] it respects no borders and spreads rapidly across the globe covet 19 has left many countries including malaysia economically shaken unemployment has hit its highest levels in a decade and the economy is expected to contract between minus 3.5 and 5.5 percent this year the pandemic is a global pandemic and that's affected all sectors of economies across the globe and malaysia is no exception to this so the malaysian economy has also taken its pd the impact is felt across all layers of society especially the poor the most vulnerable as well as those who have suddenly found themselves caught in the poverty trap not not there were pockets of vulnerable homogenized groups families who had no access to food they were getting kicked out of their homes the coronavirus crisis has driven up poverty levels in asia for the first time since the 1998 asian financial crisis can the new poor in malaysia cope and survive the challenges in the new post-pandemic era [Music] [Music] about an hour's drive north of malaysia's capital kuala lumpur lies a small satellite township called bukit buruntong designed and built in the 1990s to accommodate the rapid urban expansion of greater kuala lumpur it was supposed to be a vibrant hub equipped with an international airport a university and factories but today bukit buruntung or the lucky hills as they call it only echo tales of loss and despair most of the projects like the airport were built elsewhere leaving the town bereft of life and any spark of vitality rows of shop lots and an abundance of apartment buildings sit empty slowly decaying the town has since attracted those in search of affordable housing and his six children have lived in bukit buruntu for more than 20 years now takarudin is a mechanic and used to work at a car factory five kilometers away before leaving to pursue his dream of running his own auto mechanic shop um um unbeknownst to them his wife fadila had developed cancer [Music] treatment [Music] [Music] despite the difficulties of raising their children on his own takarudin still managed to start the auto mechanic shop he had always dreamed of he started his business in february 2020 but the timing could not have been worse [Music] just a month after opening malaysia imposed a covet 19 lockdown the strict measure had left all businesses hanging by a threat including takarudin's new auto mechanic shop [Music] all of a sudden fakaruddin's life went from bad to worse he now falls under the category of the new poor in malaysia after his income fell to zero under the revised national poverty level those earning less than 518 us dollars are considered poor a friend then approached fakarudin and asked him how he was doing is a welfare organization which delivers aid to people in need especially during these trying times runs the organization that has been helping people like fakarudin ease his financial burden thank you there are many families in bukit biruntong that need help and jalija is constantly on the lookout for the people who have fallen through the cracks is the malaysian department of statistics has revealed that malaysia's unemployment rate has increased to 5.3 percent in may 2020 the number of unemployed persons has also risen by 47 300 to some 826 000 individuals it's the highest rate in 27 years the worst hit sectors are the manufacturing sector and the services sector and these were the major contributors to the gdp and you'll find that both these sectors have taken a taken a very hard knock as a result of the of the kovit 19 and also it's not just the kovit it's also the mco where factories had to close down people were laid off and as well as the tourism the lives of countless malaysians have been turned upside down as the world goes through the worst economic downturn since the great depression the hardest hit is those who are living in the bottom 40 percent of malaysian society the group is commonly referred to as the b40 the poverty line is only an income measure it does not indicate to you the the the other dimensions of poverty which are equally important in an urban area and then of course when you're talking about urban poverty are you talking about it in kuala lumpur are you talking about in guatemala because the amount of money you need to survive in kotabaru or kota kirabalu or kuching for that matter is different depending on where your where the urban poor are located for now fakarudin is just hoping that the pandemic will be over soon as the sole breadwinner he has to shoulder a huge responsibility of raising all his six children single-handedly and he needs all the help he can get to ensure that his business will not fail um malaysia has done a remarkable job in containing the spread of the disease and kept the number of infections low but it's hard to mask the pain suffered by those who've suddenly found themselves caught in a poverty trap while the government had devised a various assistance programs and cash handouts to aid struggling low-income households the pressure will continue to mount so long as the health crisis [Music] prevails [Music] greater kuala lumpur usually referred to as the clan valley has a population of over 7 million residents this growing urban population has become more pronounced since the 1980s people from all over malaysia flock to the capital city in search of jobs to earn a better living what we do know is that the numbers of people living in urban areas have increased to about 66 percent of the population and we can see a big imbalance in terms of the age groups larger numbers of people residing in rural areas are older malaysians and those who are living in urban areas are younger so one can sense there is a continual flow of migration from rural areas to urban centers such as that around southern qatar penang the areas around the klang valley the areas surrounding johoro and the iskandar region so that is a process that continues to take place to this day the cost of living can be vastly cheaper in rural areas as compared to an urban centre port dixon or pd is just over an hour's drive from kuala lumpur it's a sleepy seaside town that will only come to life during the holiday season when city slickers descend under town to let their hair down one of the best thing of living in partisan is you have the beach at your backyard first you know you don't get this in kl so yeah that's um so that's where i go to spend most of the time in production fishing and which is also a hobby that i picked up from my father-in-law after moving back to pollington i learned it from him malik was born and bred in kuala lumpur he's a well-known cameraman who works in commercials documentaries and feature films in december 2019 right after the pandemic started in china malik and his family moved from their home in kl to port dixon unlike most people who are making the rural to urban migration malik was doing the reverse that's because the film industry has taken a big hit because of the pandemic production work has all dried up freelance jobs that malik had lined up evaporated and malik struggled to keep his boutique production house business afloat it was uh stressful of course because you have 15 livelihood under you that under your care that you need to make sure that every one of them get the salary on point on the day that you that you agreed uh and of course on top of that you have family and all that so it was not easy everyone thinks that it's easy to just make money to earn a living by just picking up a camera you know but they don't understand that the experience is what matters yes you can get a job but if you do not know how to deliver or you do not know how to solve any situation that you face during production you know then you don't get paid so so on our end we have the experience but the one who's hiring do not see that so desire this is the challenge before the pandemic hit malik had three jobs lined up since then two of the jobs have been cancelled and the other delayed if there's one thing that the pandemic has done to him is that it has altered his world view and his approach to life this year 2020 to me is a year of humility and empathy seriously we uh all the while we've always been in the comfort zone we forgot that little little things in life that make us happy so this during these pandemic times this coronal virus thinking that happened really created an impact and a reminder it's some sort like a wake-up call hey look you really do not need to go out you spend more time with your family you know um you earn as much as 5 ringgit if you're able to earn five ringgit a day it's good enough really you're happy you don't need to earn 5 million a day to be happy you know these basic basic things um so that that is what i i i tend to realize and because we've got three months at home to just sit and and think and then reflect with no job prospects in the near term malik needed to make sure that he's able to put food on the table for him and his family to keep themselves afloat malik and his wife emily decided to start an effort b business well work first of all living in pd it's you don't need much but you still need something to survive on i mean it ties back to the the other question yeah we we my husband is the soul wait he's the main breadwinner of the family so when things started to get serious the government announced the mco we were worried like how are we going to make ends meet in our savings account was was depleting and you know a lot of jobs got postponed cancelled being a freelancer we decided to do something from home and food was the obvious choice because you know um you know delivery was still we can still deliver around around the area this home business that we we are currently doing uh it started off as a mountain pops business as a word of mouth that kind of thing so it will stay that way and we cannot cook that many orders also and also we need to marinate a day before and all that it's tedious work you know it's something that managed to give us some income you know why not to keep it going so for my son omai it was important for him to see us as parents you know dealing with this challenge in a positive way so we decided to yeah we included him in food preparation and he watched us and um and and the money coming in also you know he could see that it helped the family so definitely um yeah we were glad we did it [Music] despite the difficulties malik remains optimistic about his future the situation he feels will get better soon jobs prospect there will be jobs definitely there will be jobs it's just that the approach towards jobs will be different um regarding the sops and whatnot so there will be definitely there will be jobs in a time of crisis life in rural malaysia has become an attractive option for urban dwellers for now malik is enjoying a simpler life in pd [Music] me there are some people who say that the economy probably will take another six months to a year to improve and there are others who say that it will take a lot longer so every sector in the economy is affected whether you take the education sector the health sector the the manufacturing sector the services sector tourism and there are some predictions that i've seen where they say the tourism sector is expected to only recover in [Music] 2022-23 so that's a long time according to the medeka center there will be an additional five to eight percent of the malaysian population that will fall into poverty because of the pandemic that's about 1.5 to 2.4 million people the pandemic i think has affected people in different ways in urban areas i think we've seen you know job losses happening within the retail and the services sector we actually were able to carry out a survey and we did find that as many as one half of the population of the workforce actually you know suffered a loss of income and some suffered the loss of their jobs so i think some of these people maybe a small number they went back to their hometowns because they do have some form of support systems in the hometown they can go back to their parents houses and they at least have access to a lower cost of living for them to you know address things while things were uncertain for malik his production house in kl today only exists in name there are no projects coming in to sustain his business and no more funds to keep it going his priorities in life have now changed in a blink of an eye even now wait whatever that's happening on the pandemic people would not want to spend tight fists tougher the only way for us uh to get job now is to reduce to reduce our rates uh and we cannot be going around saying no oh this is my rate you pay me no let's say thank you very much we have other ones yeah competition yeah it was um kind of a wake-up call you know i think we can't go on living the way we do you know in very materialist culture you know at the end of the day human lives matter you know family matters and that's the most important thing of all joblessness and sudden loss of income have left many households struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic period similar stories of pain and hardship which are being shared by residents all across the country some are much worse than others when will it end [Music] saba is one of the poorest states in malaysia poor infrastructure high cost of living and low education levels are often associated with the state while the poverty rate in sabah has been steadily decreasing the pandemic has thrown years of effort out the window today 19.5 percent or almost 100 000 of its residents live below the poverty line sandakan is a port town on the east coast of sabah in its heyday the town was said to have the highest concentration of millionaires in the world mostly linked to the timber industry its fortunes however changed after world war ii today it's home to some of malaysia's poorest communities based on the latest statistics available um which we got them from 2016 our sabah poverty rate is stands at 2.9 as compared to the national level at 0.4 percent so it is around 7 seven times higher than the national level and with the pandemic that is going on i can saba is definitely facing a big challenge as compared to the past years and a bigger challenge 31 year old vivian wong is a politician from zandakan unlike many of her peers who have moved to the bustling urban centers she has chosen to stay in sandakan vivian received many calls for help in particular the mothers of bahala island who are in need of infant milk powder [Music] she then approached an ngo called future alan borneo through crowdfunding they managed to raise about 4 800 u.s dollars to buy infant milk powder for mothers on the island who couldn't afford to feed their babies while malaysia has enforced social distancing measures and mandatory use of masts the rules might not have been observed strictly by rural communities in sabah many of them simply can't afford to buy a mask fifty-year-old sadia binte lauden lives on the hala island she works as a cook and cleaner in a children's learning center set up by the military outpost on the island when malaysia went into lockdown she was lucky not to lose her job but her salary came late and she wasn't able to feed her six children [Music] [Music] husband works as a fisherman during the lockdown period the family found it very hard to survive on the husband's meager income especially with all the restrictions that were put in place do [Music] further compounding the problem is the state of the economy many people in sabah rely directly or indirectly on tourism the state has long been a tourist magnet due to its natural attractions like mount kinabalu as well as its natural forests and beaches without the tourist dollar it's very hard for the state to earn the much needed revenue but because of the pandemic um definitely we are facing like you know zero income from tourism which all the tour operators has to some of them have to cease the operation for a moment in sanakan we are we facing a few hotels has already announced that they will cease the operation so roughly a few hundreds in hand that we know will all will face unemployment during this period tourism accounts for more than 10 of saba's gdp as early as january 30th the state halted international flights from china cutting up a vital economic driver for the people who live here while the pre-emptive move was made to protect the tourism industry it couldn't do anything to avert its rapid decline sheraton four points is the biggest hotel in sanakan so zandakan is a town that has very limited number of tourists it's only three or four months a year that we have an over supply of them the rest of the year is quite quiet so as a 300 plus room hotel it was understandable that they would struggle to sustain their numbers the sheraton four points was the first hotel to shutter in early 2020 and it wouldn't be the last [Music] apart from running an ngo anton is also involved in the tourism business he and his wife run a boutique hotel called nak our hotel business has been struggling for a number of years but our fnb does very well so it is one business supporting two businesses like i have to put it very simply however you did very well you know good crowds good we do we have a very diverse crowd of customers from families to tourists to young couples to drinkers to non-drinkers so we capture a large uh section of the ffbe market in sanakam but then when the borders close and the numbers drop to zero and all that you know it's the reality sunk in bangnagara offered us all the banks to offer businesses uh financial support through loans very low interest rate loans we were one of the few who ran the beginning thought let's try to apply then when the banks came back to us and offered us a certain package right we realized that if business continued at this level we'd have an extra burden of debt that we didn't really need because we really could not see how you know we're going to generate anywhere near normal sort of business volume to be able to pay our staff keep everything running and service alone and interest even at the very low rate nak is one of santa khan's oldest hotels in june 2020 nak would host his last guests before shattering lynn captured these memories from its last day that's it so um it's about 3 p.m now our signboard has come down as you can see we established 1966. we have a bit of a queue at the door we're trying to follow all the sop for even for the last day as well um everyone's trying to get in at the very last minute so this is hot we are in our pastry kitchen this is where we make all our lava cakes all your cheesecakes and i think she's making the last batch of lava kicks for tonight this is a desert that we've been serving for the past 12 years since the beginning of time ready anything you want to say [Laughter] she doesn't talk a lot she just laughs a lot nonstop i'm really sad in a way to see it to to after whenever some someone is like you know telling us that they're gonna shut down i always approach to their boss to talk to them or um anything that we can help or assist um because in santa is our main concern was always our employees because when you work in the hospitality and fmb industry a lot of them are b40 families a lot of them are breadwinners so you know our sort of first action in mind was really to okay let's figure them out first what what are we gonna do what are we gonna offer to them and then deal with the emotions later for me personally you know it's sentimental because it's named after my grandfather so a lot of the relatives expectations was on the mind and her shoulders but i think they realize it's been a struggle running the business so with the kovit coming in and all that it was somewhat inevitable that we needed to do something drastic yeah and closure until we figured things out was the best solution how much has the government done to help reverse their dwindling fortunes [Music] the covert 19 pandemic has ravaged the global economy and upended lives it has also posed a great challenge to the poor who have suddenly found themselves stripped of their livelihoods and main source of income to help minimise their suffering governments all over the world including malaysia have pumped in billions of dollars to alleviate their financial burden and keep the economy going the malaysian government has unveiled four economic stimulus packages totaling an estimated 75 billion us dollars they are part of a series of fiscal measures to help cushion and mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on both business and households in terms of the specific plans i think there's a few good ones that have kind of been effective in helping the businesses and the individuals to bridge through this crisis so one of them is the rich subsidy program which is good to help it's a two-prong thing where it helps to reduce the loss of employment and also help businesses to sustain throughout this time while these rescue packages have been valuable to the country the benefits have not been felt fully by those who fall outside the scope of formal employment they're also not registered with the necessary mechanisms through which aid can be efficiently dispersed and it would require specific efforts to reach out to those who have fallen through the cracks and have gone completely unnoticed kachera's soup kitchen for example provides food for the urban homeless who roam the streets of kl they have been operating since 2008. every saturday night teams of people spread out across kuala lumpur to distribute around 500 packets of food to the needy and the homeless okay uh thank you everyone for coming my name is justin uh just a simple message across to every one of you thank you for coming and we're here tonight to help look for our streets friends there's about 474 packets of food we have a food team we have medical team we have registration team and we also have a responder team in this urban jungle the homeless can be seen at various corners of the streets turning these places into their temporary shelters for the night several soup kitchens and shelters operate in the area offering reassurance that they won't go hungry at least for one night the situation before pandemic is very different we are seeing a lot of poor people yeah no doubt about it but after mco we are seeing more and more people becoming more struggled so i think the government is working on an initiative now where they're sort of getting people to coordinate all the different types of help needed and products and services that are needed and sort of coordinating to see in real time um what the communities different communities in getting together uh all the different ngos working together in that space and sort of forming clusters so that we knew they know which ngo is doing what so you have like a food security cluster or you have you know livelihood cluster or you have you know health clusters um so so they're able to see which ngo is doing what where and where are the missing gaps and then getting other people to come in and doing it but i think they're still working on it so that's an amazing initiative that's happening now while there are new faces on the streets of downtown kl there are also some familiar faces adnan has been living on the streets for more than 15 years he repairs fans for a living and uses whatever little money that he gets from servicing the fans to buy food all the restrictions which have been imposed to contain the spread of the pandemic have also made the situation even worse for him as jobs become scarce [Music] foreign [Music] shame and old wounds prevent him from reaching out to them the uncle who fixes the fan wanna he's quite interesting still interesting guy as well doesn't want to bother the family and then no literally they have a family but they are like not in the good system like that you know they don't really uh take care of each other or probably by not staying together that would mean it is something that they are helping already because they don't want to be a burden to their life justin comes across a new face that has found her way onto the streets she has a wound gangrene feet caused by underlying health issues father foreign [Laughter] it was the senior citizens the single mothers that were the hardest hit i think and the children because they didn't know where to go where to turn to of course it hit really hard during cover 19. no husbands no job no money for food kids were at home not even in school because they couldn't go anywhere they didn't know what to do the elderly and the sick couldn't move couldn't do anything helpless they're the ones i think that suffer [Music] most of the people that are in desperate need are the elderly lao king is 85 years old her husband has died and her children rarely visit her her eyesight isn't great she can still walk even if slowly to the coffee shop to get her favorite drink or the convenience store to buy a loaf of bread you can't ask someone to fill in a 16 page paper or to fill in even a two-page paper online when they don't have internet or in writing if they can't read and write or you know in they're just intimidated by having to fill out a two-page questionnaire or whatever it is to determine whether they deserve food you can't determine if someone destroys food they deserve food it's food and so we're talking about basic needs so it's just a little easier to i guess get a number of someone you know who'll help and call that person out which is what i'm getting so there are screening processes in place in criteria that we look for and you know there's a check and balance but food is food yeah shelter is shelter you need it it has no condition so in 2019 we have around 405 000 households in poverty so that's quite a major reduction as well although it's only two percent reduction so we we have done quite well in terms of reducing poverty in malaysia so i think that one of the few key factors that have affected and contributed to the reduction is basically i think one is of course economic growth and development that is one big factor but also the very inclusive policies that we have done throughout the years and policies that empower people basically as power the poor especially so these are some of the things that some some segments of the society are being left out of the social assistance of course government has done some measures to go into the villages interiors to distribute assistance but this has shown that that is the mechanism that we have is not holistic enough to tackle and target everyone in the society i think for the most part the malaysian government realizes the extent of the problem and i think they are trying to be quite prudent in the way that they are trying to address it meaning to say that they have not turned on the taps you know in in in a very great way you know flooding the country with cash they have actually done it very judiciously in stages in order to counter specific effects or depend them in parts of the economy so all of those things are slowly being done i think the question now is whether or not all of these efforts is enough to counter factors that are beyond the control of the malaysian government which is the global economy and also the strength of the country's trading partners whether they are able to do two things number one address the pandemic in their own respective countries and number two resolve their economic wars as well malaysia has fallen into a recession its gdp fell 17.1 in the second quarter its deepest contraction since the 1998 asian financial crisis the country's economy is also expected to shrink between 3.5 and 5.5 percent for the rest of the year culvert 19 has dealt a severe blow to the economic livelihood of many countries which have done an admirable job in lifting many of the poor out of extreme poverty and malaysia is no exception the authorities have charted a course for sustainable recovery but the sharp economic pain experienced by the people has left an unforgettable mark on this generation of malaysians for the urban poor living on the edges of society the challenge will be even greater as jobs become much harder to secure especially in the current economic environment one can only hope that the pandemic will disappear much sooner rather than later [Music] you

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 569,288

Keywords: Insight, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, poverty, Asia, COVID-19, pandemic, coronavirus, unemployment, recession, poverty level, lockdown, new poor, welfare organisation, Bukit Beruntung, urban poor, Movement Control Order, MCO, Sabah, Sandakan, B40, economic stimulus, homeless, CNA, CNA Insider, People Stories, Asia news, Asian Perspectives

Id: P70c_1WeNiI

Length: 49min 47sec (2987 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020