JPKE plans to establish poverty line

Hana Roslan
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

THE Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE) under Prime Minister's Office is planning to use data collected from the national household expenditure survey to determine the country's poverty line.

According to Hjh Mariah Hj Yahya, acting director of Statistics at JPKE, some countries use findings from household surveys, which are conducted to find out average household expenses, as a source to measure poverty line.

"In Brunei, there is no such poverty line," she said in an interview with The Brunei Times.

When asked how the department plans to work out whether there is an actual poverty line in Brunei, she said that they intend to use the survey to find out the cost of the basic requirements as a start, but said that the data was still in the processing stages and is expected to be out the second quarter of next year.

JPKE carried out the household expenditure survey from April 2010 to March 2011, which Hjh Mariah said was an international requirement carried out every five years, to find out Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) with regards to inflation.

"We use the result to know which group of expenditure items families spend on the most for example, transport, clothes and food," she said.

First and foremost, she said, the survey aims to find out the expenditure level per household as well as find out where the income per family comes from, whether it was from work, personal business or welfare assistance from the government.

She added that there will also be an addition to the survey next year, following the introduction of the new electricity tariffs next year.

Hjh Mariah also pointed out that results of the Population and Housing Census (BPP) 2011 which will be published in January next year is not sufficient to determine the poverty line in Brunei.

This is because the questions asked are more focused on work income, and that the questionnaire in itself needed to be more comprehensive.

"For example, if we wanted to determine (the poverty line) we have to ask more probing questions, questions that we can sometimes get from the household expenditure survey," she said.

Hjh Mariah said that the household expenditure survey picked their respondents by using the sampling technique, which would represent the whole country.

They will sample households from the selected areas in all districts, she added, although not all households are picked for the sampling.

The department surveyed 6,000 households which is about 500 houses per month.

"The reason why we did it over 12 months was because household expenditure changes from month to month so we want to come up with average patterns (of expenditure)," she explained.The Brunei Times

Dipetik dari - The Brunei Times