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KUALA LUMPUR: Owning a television set, a radio or a car will no longer disqualify the poor from receiving welfare aid.
Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said her ministry was reviewing its criteria for granting aid to poor families for the first time in 30 years. "We have reviewed the amount of aid we give to the poor per month, but the criteria has not been reviewed since the 1970s," she said. In the last decade, the monthly stipend has been raised from RM300 to RM450, and more recently to RM500. Shahrizat said her ministry hoped to introduce the new criteria by January, adding that the review would also take into account whether a possible recipient lived in an urban or rural area.
She said the changing times prompted the review of the criteria. "For example, in some poor homes if there is a battered old car, then the family does not qualify for aid."
The review will also look at providing aid to families where one or two people are working. "The reality is that even if one or two are working, it does not mean that they are able to look out for the whole family, especially if there are disabled family members," she said, adding that a television set or a radio did not mean a family was well off.
Shahrizat also said the ministry was looking at extending the review period for those receiving aid. "At present, we review a case every six months, but we are looking to extend the monitoring period."
The ministry, she said, wanted aid to reach as many people as possible and the review was part of the ministry’s plans to improve services to its target group. "We want to provide a stronger and wider safety net for our target group. This is crucial as a lot of these people are out of the safety net." Two years ago, as a pro-active measure to reach out to the needy, the ministry launched the Mayang (Masyarakat Penyayang) outreach programme. Welfare officers were encouraged to go out and look for needy cases. "Our officials were told to go out and engage with community leaders who would be able to lead them to the needy."
And this is what the Star reported:
source
HAVING a television, car or refrigerator will no longer be the yardstick to determine how much aid should go to a poor family, Utusan Malaysia reports. Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said beginning January, the Welfare Department would follow a new set of guidelines to ensure that target groups were given aid.
She said the current definition denied help that a poor family should be getting. “The conditions that are used deny aid to a poor family because it takes factors like having a television, refrigerator and car into consideration. “Now, we have to look at such items as necessities. It does not define the ‘comfort’ of a particular family,” she said after opening a Quran recital event at the Amaniah Mosque in Kepong last Sunday.
However, Shahrizat said that because Malaysia was not a welfare state, no party could be blamed for using the yardstick which had been in existence for a long time.
