Ensuring folk get federal bounty

SHAH ALAM: The Selangor state government is committed to ensuring the state’s residents do not miss out on various benefits from the Federal Government, especially the upcoming targeted subsidies, says the Mentri Besar.

Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari (pic) said Selangor was prepared to share data with the Statistics Department to be incorporated into the Federal Government’s Central Database Hub (Padu).

“The state government is prepared to share the data from the Selangkah application owned by the state government’s subsidiary Selangkah Ventures Sdn Bhd,” he said.

He added that Selangkah had information on recipients of the state government’s various social welfare schemes.

“Some 3,712,616 data points of 66,216 subsidy recipients from the Selangkah application can be shared with Padu, subject to usage terms and conditions,” Amirudin said in his speech at a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signing ceremony between the Statistics Department and Selangkah Ventures at the state secretariat here yesterday.

Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin signed for the Statistics Department while Selangkah Ventures chief information officer Dr Helmi Zakariah signed for the state subsidiary.

The Mentri Besar also said that the transferring and cross- checking of data between Selangkah and Padu is scheduled to be implemented on April 19.

Amirudin, who also spoke at a press conference later, said the state had carried out continuous promotion of Padu by opening 3,221 counters throughout Selangor from Jan 2 to March 31, in addition to working together with the Economy Ministry in engaging with community leaders.

He said the state government was aware that sound and accurate data was needed in order to develop and implement sustainable national policies for the people.

He added that up to March 31, a total of 1.89 million Selangor residents aged 18 and above had updated their details in the Padu system, which works up to 44.5 % of the targeted 4.24 million people.

Amirudin also said the state government collaborated with the Selangor Statistics Department to ensure the state’s residents registered as well as updated their details in the Padu system.

Meanwhile, Dr Mohd Uzir said Selangor was the first state to sign an MOU directly with his department while other states had initiated collaborations with the Federal Government.