Vietnamese people stuck in the poverty trap are asking to continue to be on the “poor list” rather than be reclassified and miss out on assistance.

Most poor people are living in the rural and mountainous

Phu Yen province official, Vu Thanh Binh, deputy director of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, discussed the issue at the recent conference to implement tasks in 2010 of the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs.

He said that he’d been asked many times by people to not be reclassified and removed from the poor list. He believes this is evidence of relying on others and of problems in the poverty reduction policy.

Binh said the criterion for being listed as a poor family is a monthly income of 200,000 dong/person. While many families have escaped from the poverty threshold their income is only a little more, however, the lose subsidies like cheap loans and free health insurance.

According to the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, based on the poverty criterion for 2006-2010 (200,000 dong/person/month in rural areas and 260,000 dong/person/month in urban), Vietnam has around 2 million poor households, accounting for 11 percent of the population.

However, many National Assembly deputies say the reported reduction in the percentage of poor households doesn’t reflect the facts. The number of poor people hasn’t fallen instead it has risen due to inflation and the economic slowdown. It is estimated that since the above criterion of poverty was issued, the Vietnam dong has depreciated by 40 percent.

Deputy prime minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said at the conference that Vietnam cannot maintain the above criterion for ranking poverty. He asked MoLISA to draw up a new one in the first quarter of 2010 for provinces to consider in the second quarter. The new criterion must be used as of 2011, he said.

He also told MoLISA and provinces to check carefully to ensure an accurate number of poor households.

“Before granting assistance to the poor before Tet 2009, based on the reported number of poor households, I calculated a need of 3.5 trillion dong but the real figure was nearly 2 trillion dong. MoLISA’s poor household ratio is 11 percent while the Ministry of Planning and Investment say 12 percent,” Hung said.

MoLISA’s targets and results in 2009 and the goals for 2010:

PV