Remember the PADU socio-economic database that was spearheaded by former economy minister Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli? It wasn’t in vain after all, as data from the Pangkalan Data Utama will be used in the RON95 subsidy rationalisation programme’s mechanism.
According to finance minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan, the mechanism that’s being fine-tuned by the MoF will use data from PADU, which has 30.4 million individual profiles. The profiles of Malaysians contain information on demographics, locality, socioeconomic and occupation, income, education, vehicle ownership, ‘poverty status’ (status kemiskinan) and the type of assistance one is receiving.
“About the implementation of the targeted subsidy, PADU’s data will be used by the MoF as a reference for RON95 subsidy recipients. This is the first use of PADU in a detailed way,” said Amir Hamzah, who is also the acting economy minister after Rafizi resigned in May.
“For now, the government will focus on the use of the latest data to improve the effectiveness of service delivery. For example, confirmation and verification of the applicant’s information to ensure that the recipient is truly qualified, reducing error,” the senator told Dewan Rakyat today, reported by Bernama. He added that from the data in hand, the government can also identify the intervention programmes for target groups.
Amir Hamzah also shed some light on PADU’s current status. He said that as of now, 204 agencies have shared and integrated their data directly with PADU, with data usage limited to government agencies. To date, there have been nine approved applications to use PADU’s data from various agencies, he added.
In November 2024, Rafizi revealed that around 55% of households registered on PADU during the first phase, with most coming from lower income groups.
“Previously, there was an assumption that the M40 group would not receive subsidies. Now, with the government clarifying that only the T15 and above are ineligible and the criteria announced, I think more groups will register. If the public understands that verifying eligibility for RON 95 subsidies relies on data from PADU and they don’t register, they risk being excluded,” the Pandan MP said then.
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