A year has passed but some flood victims have yet to get their compassionate aid as promised by the Federal Government due to the lackadaisical attitude of those who were involving in giving out the Aid.
When the Aid was first announced early last year, there was no proper channel for the victims to claim the RM300. Through the media, victims were told to seek help from the Community leaders to put their names forward to the Resident office.
Community leaders are not all hard working people. There were some who 'pushed' the victims to go to another community leader as they were not in their jurisdiction or other reasons they could think of to get rid of doing extra work. And some victims were not even aware who their community leaders were, no thanks to these community leaders who were put there doing nothing for the people!
A group of 70 victims came to my help last year as they heard that their neighbours had already got their money. They were puzzled as to why their houses were flooded but there was no help rendered to them.
I spoke on the matter twice in the DUN. During the last DUN sitting, State Disaster and Relief Committee Chairman, Datuk Patinggi Dr. George Chan was not so happy when I voiced out the issue again. He remarked that if you are late, you are late.
I was not surprise with such attitude coming from him. The problem of these BN leaders who were so ‘high up’ tend not to see the suffering of the less fortunate people.
I was glad at early January, I learned that they were given the Aid.
As there was about 100 more victims who have yet to get their Compassionate Aid, I wrote to the Resident and submitted their names.
I was very shocked at the callous way a reply was given me recently. The officer in charge from the Resident Office should not have penned me such a reply. He stated in his letter that there was no more fund for the flood victims as the money had all been spend. He said if there were a number of victims who did not come forward to get the money and that would be distributed to some of the victims .
His last paragraph in the letter annoyed me a great deal when he said if the flood victims do not to hear from the Resident Office in a month's time, that would mean that their applications fail and no fund is available.
Every year, the Disaster fund allocation came to about RM200 million. The money was meant to help the people. Where is the money? If really, there was not enough fund, then appeal for more.
This is not a supermarket sales gimmick, "first come, first serve until stock last!" Here you are talking about the losses of the people and you have such a callous attitude about it. Have some feelings for the less fortunate, please.
We must not forget that these Aid given out were from the tax payers money.
I hope this time the relevant authority would pay out the rest of the flood victims who were still anxiously waiting. Don’t make them wait any longer, they have suffered enough.
