PADU: Who is responsible for protecting your personal data?
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https://soyacincau.com/2024/01/02/padu-what-is-it-is-your-personal-data-safe-xrs/
TA Research expects the government to educate people about Padu to ensure that the subsidy-rationalisation plan stays on track.
PETALING JAYA: The newly launched national Central Database Hub (Padu) is a move in the right direction for ensuring fairer subsidy distribution, analysts say.
However, its system self-updating information could be “a little bit tedious” particularly for senior citizens and those residing in rural areas, said TA Research.
The research house expects the government to educate people about Padu in order to make sure the subsidy-rationalisation plan stays on track.
The public will be given a three-month period until March 31, 2024 to update and verify their information on the database.
Since this is not compulsory, no action will be taken against those who do not update their information in the database.
With the implementation of Padu, TA Research said the government aims for a more focused distribution of subsidies and partly move away from the general income categories such as B40, M40 or T20, which does not give a true picture of household disposable income.
“However, there is a catch, whereby those who did not register would be at risk of being excluded from receiving targeted subsidies. We are made to understand that the risk of exclusion may occur as the government will use existing information and information updated in Padu to determine the household profile and eligibility for those who qualify for targeted subsidies or otherwise,” the research house added.
TA Research said on the reliability of the data in the system should be reasonable.
“Managed by the Statistics Department, we believe the given information will be cross-checked and verified by the related government agencies. For the record, Padu covers 270 types of data under the federal government from various agencies. Data from state and local governments will be gradually included,” it said.
According to the research firm, this process should happen in the second phase, probably in April-June 2024, just in time for the subsidy rationalisation plan to take place in the second half of 2024.
The implementation of targeted subsidies is expected to help the government achieve its target of reducing the fiscal deficit to between 3%-3.5% of gross domestic product by 2025. The government has allocated RM52.8bil for subsidies this year. It is projected to decrease by 17.9% compared to an estimated RM64.2bil in 2023, primarily due to the gradual implementation of subsidy rationalisation, TA Research said.
'Vital to ensure no one slips through the cracks ...
PETALING JAYA: Putrajaya must find ways to ensure deserving aid recipients do not slip through the cracks under the Padu system, say economic experts.
There must be ways to catch “errors of omissions” and “errors of inclusion”, where there will be some who are qualified but excluded – whereas there will be those who are not qualified but they are mistakenly included, said economist Datuk Dr Madeline Berma of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.
“As for the near real-time aspect, there is the question of the honesty of Malaysians to update the data.
“Should you be unemployed today and getting subsidies, would you update your data of getting employment at the expense of forgoing your subsidies six months later?
“While it all looks good and fine on paper, data must not be allowed to rule and human elements should not be disregarded.
“The data must be used to facilitate and expedite but not to be rule-all,” said Berma, who also called on the government to make full use of the community arms such as NGOs to ensure that no one falls through the gaps.
Malaysian Inclusive Development and Advancement Institute, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia director Tan Sri Noor Azlan Ghazali said that when it comes to such a database, purpose matters.
“Errors will always be there. It is best to define the accepted level of error and quickly get to fixing problems.
“Is there a need to go to the individual level? Is ground targetting sufficient?
“Weigh the costs and the gains,” said Noor Azlan.
Economics expert Prof Dr Chung Tin Fah of HELP University also said having a central database is laudable but pointed out that there is always a problem of how reliable the data can be.
He said this is due to the possibility of certain groups such as those living in remote geographical locations and those outside the scope of coverage such as informal sector workers being omitted from the database.
He said the government must focus on the inclusion of such groups in order to enhance data reliability.
Economics expert Prof Dr Geoffrey Williams of the Malaysia University of Science Technology (MUST) said everyone has an incentive to help make it work by updating their data quickly and accurately in the Padu central database.
“If they are dishonest, there should be swift penalties. This will make sure people provide accurate data and keep it updated,” he said.
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