Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email In just FOUR months, the Welfare Department have managed to locate 31,000 potential cases that need welfare assistance! Makes one wonder what they have been doing before this? Did this 31,000 cases fall from the sky overnight?
Welfare Department officers have searched and managed to locate 31,000 potential cases needing livelihood assistance.
The search since September was in response to a call by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for active measures to ensure the underprivileged are not left in dire need.
“Of the 31,000 cases, some 17,000 are in need of our help,” Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen told reporters at the ministry’s Quality Day 2008 celebration at Institut Sosial Malaysia yesterday.
She added that the ministry was currently providing various kinds of assistance to 160,000 needy folks. “Our services can be improved. There are still too many complaints from the public published in the media about the quality of our delivery, especially delays in attending to needy cases,” she said.
Dr Ng added that the ministry provided services to eight target groups — women, family, children, old folks, the handicapped, the abject poor, natural disaster victims and non-governmental organisations.
For next year, she said, the ministry had been allocated some RM933.2mil and 55% of the money would go to the target groups.
“I stress on the need for officers disbursing the financial assistance to be accountable and work with a sense of integrity,” she said.
For families or individuals receiving assistance, Dr Ng said that while relief was offered, it was always the ministry’s intention to wean them off government aid.
The ministry, she added, encouraged productive welfare, where aid recipients are given skills training leading to independent living.
