KUALA LUMPUR: The women, family and community development ministry has been asked why groups representing disabled people (OKU) were seeking the help of opposition MPs if it had already met them to address complaints over a cashless payment system.
Hannah Yeoh (PH-Segambut) posed the question in the Dewan Rakyat today to deputy minister Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff, who was asked about a protest by OKU groups outside Parliament earlier this month calling for the ministry to scrap the JKMPay system.
She also wanted to know whether Siti Zailah or the minister, Rina Harun, had met the groups to discuss the issue when they went to the ministry three times after the protest.
“Why couldn’t the minister or deputy minister meet with the OKU representatives? Instead, these groups had to resort to Zoom meetings with opposition MPs to air their grievances,” Yeoh said.
Siti Zailah replied that neither she nor Rina could meet the groups because they both were at meetings on the day of the protest.
However, she added that the ministry’s chief secretary, Maziah Che Yusoff, and her deputy, as well as several senior officials, met the activists and she was briefed on the protest.
Siti Zailah also said that she met the OKU groups at the ministry before their protest outside Parliament.
“I even prepared a feast for them,” she said, to which Lim Lip Eng (PH-Kepong) interjected and asked Siti Zailah for photos of the meeting.
On March 1, about 100 OKU representatives gathered outside Parliament to demand that the government do away with the JKMPay scheme, which they said was unfriendly, and reinstate the cash incentive allowance.
JKMPay, launched last April by Rina, was a pioneer programme that had been undergoing evaluation.
Under the scheme, half of the approved cash aid to OKUs was to be paid through the JKMPay card. The programme, launched with the cooperation of Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd, allowed the cashless card to be used at selected retail outlets and services registered with the bank.
The scheme has since been suspended after coming under much criticism. - FMT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.