The Sun Daily: PADU will help govt measure socioeconomics of the people more accurately - Rafizi

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PUTRAJAYA: The implementation of the Central Database Hub (PADU) will help the government provide a more accurate measurement of the socioeconomic position of the people and avoid omissions based on net disposable income.

Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli (pix) said this measurement method takes into account the number of dependents and the number of households, cost of living according to location, distance to work and ownership of assets such as houses, vehicles and land.

“This approach also allows the government to move away from the concept of B40, M40 and T20 (income groups) and look more at the propriety of giving aid based on the criteria set,“ he said in his speech at the PADU launch ceremony here today.

According to Rafizi, the development of PADU is part of the effort towards “Govtech” through the provision of a safe, comprehensive and “near real-time” national main database that allows more accurate data analytics to be produced.

“PADU also supports the three main aspects that are emphasised in Govtech, namely public services that are easily accessible and people-centric, digital government transformation and an efficient, transparent and uncomplicated government system.

“The availability of PADU will help policy formulation and the data-driven policy-making process, “ he said.

He said PADU includes individual profiles containing basic demographic information, address, education, household, employment, income, commitments and aid received, and some of this data has been supplied by various ministries and agencies integrated into PADU.

Although various information has been integrated into the PADU system, Rafizi said there is still information that needs to be updated by each individual involving 39 variables.

Updating by the individual himself will be able to guarantee the validity of data and reflect the latest status of the people in PADU.

This, he said, would improve the mechanism for determining target groups, streamline delivery channels and enable more effective programme implementation.

Meanwhile, the chief statistician of the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the success of PADU depends on the authenticity of the data obtained from the people who register.

“(Thus), I call on everyone to provide real data during registration and verification. Although we already have data from various agencies and ministries, we give the people the opportunity to check their main data to ensure that the data we have is the most accurate and up-to-date,“ he added.

Moving forward, he said the data should be made a strategic asset of the country.

Mohd Uzir said PADU utilises all the people’s data available in various government ministries and agencies, depending on the age of the individual, with the data limited to the relevant agencies.

“We do not centralise the data on the PADU platform, the original data remains in the agencies and ministries involved. The data we need is the data that needs to be added such as the latest data and so on,“ he said. -Bernama