Chong Chieng Jen, DAP Sarawak Chairman
It is clear that the GPS is the one playing politics and manipulating public funding for its political agenda even at the time when people are suffering from the Movement Control Order. In the management of disaster fund, transparency is a fundamental criteria. There is a total lack of transparency in the management of the RM200,000 food assistance allocation per DUN area.
In the Official Memorandum issued by the Kementerian Kebajikan, Kesejahteraan Komuniti, Wanita, Keluarga dan Pembangunan Kanak-kanak to all the chairmen of the Divisional Disaster Management Committee dated 3-4-2020, it was clearly stated that the RM200,000 food assistance allocation per DUN area is to be managed by the respective ADUNs’ service centre except for the Opposition-held DUN area. The GPS ADUNs’ service centre “will manage all purchases of food items and confirm the purchase bills, submitting an application to JBB (Disaster committee) for payment.”
According to the Official Memo, for the DUN areas held by the Opposition, the GPS ADUNs from the adjacent area will take charge. For Padungan, Pending, Batu Lintang and Kota Sentosa, the total RM800,000.00 will be managed by Sim Kui Hian’s Service Centre.
If the GPS State Government is sincere about working together to battle the covid-19 pandemic, why discriminate against the Opposition ADUNs in this allocation? What does Sim Kui Hian’s service centre know about the demography and the needs of the people in Padungan, Pending, Batu Lintang and Kota Sentosa?
Now that Sim’s assistance has been confirmed positive to covid-19 test, is it not that his service centre ought to be closed for sanitisation and those who have come in close contact with his assistant be quarantined? If that were the case, how then can his Service Centre be effective in managing the distribution of food to all the DUN areas?
Not only is the Opposition ADUNs not given the allocation to manage, we are also not given the information about the delivery of the food assistance by the State Welfare Department.
Fatimah and Sim Kui Hian as the persons directly involved, must be held accountable to the people on the following:
1. Who are the recipients of the aid? Why is the need to be so secretive unless the number given by Fatimah is not true.
2. How much was allocated for the food aid per family? From the photos shown by many in the social media, and even the photo shown in the Dayak daily report today, the total amount of food items given by the State Government is less than RM30.00 per family.
3. What is the rationale for the discrimination against the Opposition ADUNs by depriving their service centres the resources to help the poor? Is this not persecution against the people for supporting the Opposition?
As for DAP, we have tried our best, with our limited resources to help:
1. When there was a lack of personal protection equipment (PPE) for the front liners, we sought donations and purchased PPE for them by ourselves.
2. When the government stopped us from delivering food, we helped collect the names and contacts of families who are in need of the food and gave them to the Welfare Department.
3. When the Welfare Department failed to deliver the food to the applicants whose names we have submitted, we sought permission from the PDRM, to use our own fund to buy food items, started fundraising and mobilised our members to deliver the food.
The discrimination by GPS against DAP will only hamper our effort to help the people. Notwithstanding such limitations imposed by GPS, we DAP will still do our part to help the people.
