Has Anwar abandoned Rafizi's RM85 million PADU?

The multi-million ringgit PADU system promoted by Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli may prove redundant as it appears to have no role to play in the government's plan to undertake a series of subsidy rationalisations, an analyst said.

This comes after PADU, the centralised database hub that Rafizi had touted as a "game changer" for distributing targeted subsidies based on a wide range of economic and social data from millions of Malaysians, was barely mentioned in the 2025 Budget presented by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Economist Amanda Yeo questioned the lack of update on PADU, which cost the government more than RM85 million to develop.

She compared the system to the MySejahtera app, which is now irrelevant after having played a major role in containing the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yeo said PADU could have been the go-to database as the government needs to categorise Malaysians by income levels in dishing out a series of new taxes and subsidy cuts.

"Ideally, PADU should be the way for the government to better categorise the rich, middle class and the poor but I don’t think the government is capable of dealing with the microeconomic level problem," said Yeo, a senior fellow at think tank Pacific Research Center.

She said the government seems to be obsessed with positive "macroeconomic indicators" such as higher GDP and foreign direct investment.

"But the people do not feel the good signs of it," she added.

Rafizi had passionately promoted PADU and urged Malaysians to enter their personal details into the database.

When the deadline passed on March 31 this year, he claimed that more than 10 million people had updated their financial and personal details.

Rafizi had refused to acknowledge criticism of PADU's weakness from various parties, including the GPS-led Sarawak government, which raised concerns over the security of personal data.

Senior government officials – including Anwar – had not openly come to Rafizi's defence when he was attacked by Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders over claims that the system was not secure.

In his budget speech last week, Anwar mentioned PADU only once, but it had nothing to do with the rationalisation of subsidies, the main reason for the database's development.

Instead, Anwar said data from PADU and other government agencies would be centralised in MyDigital ID, the identity authentication platform that acts as a virtual MyKad to handle secure online transactions.

Yeo raised the question of whether PADU was indeed a means for the government to obtain personal data of Malaysians, a concern that was raised by rights lawyers.

Meanwhile, economist Geoffrey Williams said data from PADU and the Inland Revenue Board should be able to identify those eligible for targeted subsidies, rather than introducing vaguely defined categories such as T15, which assumes that 15% of Malaysian households are top earners.

"T15 has not been properly defined and is generally taken as a household income measure. So a couple who both earn RM7,000 would be T15 together but M40 individually," said Williams.