Prepare better food for flood evacuees, Wee tells Welfare Dept

Former cabinet minister Wee Ka Siong today urged the Welfare Department to improve its management of flood relief centres, especially in preparing food for evacuees.

This comes after the Ayer Hitam MP visited several evacuation centres in his constituency in Johor and found out what he claimed was low-quality food being served to flood victims there.

According to Wee, apart from victims being served with a small amount of food, some had received undercooked rice.

The delivery of food was also very late, with breakfast only reaching relief centres after 11am, while some had lunch served after 2pm.

"I am disappointed to see the food sent here by the authorities. This is the breakfast they sent to flood victims, but at 11am.

"This is the lunch they served, but the portion is very small. I am very upset with this, and I saw that they (authority) did not do their job well," he said in a short video while showing two packs of fried noodles and white rice served with a piece of chicken.

The video posted on Wee's Facebook this afternoon was taken when he was visiting a school in Taman Kota, Yong Peng, which had been turned into a temporary relief shelter that hosted some 375 victims from 105 families.

Wee, who is MCA president, claimed that a similar situation was faced by several other relief shelters in Ayer Hitam, and caused many flood victims to starve due to late food delivery.

To address this, the BN MP suggested that the Welfare Department pass the duty to prepare food to local residential committees who can do rewang, which means collaborative activity by the local community.

"If the caterer engaged to prepare food for the relief centres cannot carry out their responsibility well, it should be given to the local JPKK (Village Development and Security Committee) to handle.

"Let them coordinate and organise preparing good and healthy food and necessities for their fellow villagers whose homes have been flooded," he said in a statement on his Facebook.

Malaysiakini was made to understand that Wee's complaints had reached the cabinet and that they will be addressed in a press conference tomorrow. - Mkini