'Govt poverty alleviation strategy not precise'

Social welfare lawmaker Tik Chi-yuen on Saturday criticised the government’s latest strategy to ease poverty by saying that such strategies are not “precise” or “accurate” in alleviating poverty as they did not include other groups that also require social support. His remarks came after authorities earlier identified around 950,000 elderly people, single parent households, and subdivided flat tenants for targeted poverty alleviation. Speaking on an RTHK programme, Tik said the latest strategy could not comprehensively reflect the city’s poverty situation. "I am not against having these target groups, but I think there aren't enough targeted groups, because there are also the disabled, the chronically ill, the mentally ill, and so on. So I think it's not 'broad' enough in terms of identifying the families who need key assistance.” “Secondly, the targeted groups are also not 'precise' enough, as it's very general to say that there are over 900,000 people [in these groups], but what about different levels… within them?” he commented, adding that the strategy is not “accurate”. The legislator also believes that the government must maintain and improve the so-called “poverty line”, instead of “abandoning” the gauge, as it could reflect whether those targeted measures to tackle poverty are having an effect. The ‘poverty line’ uses Hong Kong median household income as the sole gauge to measure poverty. The government earlier said such a gauge is no longer appropriate, and it will come up with a more accurate way of monitoring poverty levels later this year. “The latest strategy is target group-based, and the poverty line is income-based, these two have different calculation methods and are not comparable,” Tik noted. Separately, Chua Hoi-wai, the chief executive of the Hong Kong Council of Social Services, which represents some 480 non-governmental social services organisations (NGOs), said some government-led projects to tackle poverty aren't effective enough in offering help. He cited the “Strive and Rise Programme” the government set up as an example and said that such a project, despite having positive feedback in recent times, is only supporting a limited number of people. “There were about 2,000 pupils covered in the previous cohort under the programme, and about 4,000 covered in the current cohort. All these numbers are far [smaller] compared with poverty figures showing tens of thousands," Chua told RTHK. The programme cited was aimed at addressing inter-generational poverty issues by pairing under-privileged students with volunteer mentors - along with financial support: “The government might need to explain to the public why the number of assisted pupils is so small?” he asked.