‘Don’t politicise education, safety, social wellbeing matters’
KUCHING: Matters related to education, safety and wellbeing of women, children and family in particular should not be politicized, said Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
She was disappointed and upset that a few programmes on social wellbeing of the people have been cancelled or postponed of late due to unclear guideline on collaboration setup or workflow between federal and state governments.
“I think there is an urgent need for the federal Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to give a clear guideline and policy on the collaborative direction between government, departmental and agency in the state and federal,” she told a press conference after launching the First Baby Travel Safe Campaign by Mummycare at CityOne Megamall here yesterday.
She revealed that a work visit to the Kota Sentosa Hospital to see mental patients did not proceed as planned and now has been cancelled altogether, while a get-together at Sentosa Clinic can proceed but must meet certain conditions and a ‘Reading Seeds’ programme jointly organised between Pustaka Negeri Sarawak, the ministry and Sarawak Health Department was postponed pending approval from relevant departments.
“I felt that it is unfair and illogical such stand was taken because we are doing this for the targeted group and children of Sarawak. We don’t see political affiliation when carrying out such programmes,” she pressed.
“More importantly, it is the local community and Sarawakian children who are losing out on the benefits and advantages of the programmes,” she added.
Elaborating on Reading Seeds programme which aims to inculcate the reading habit in children from a young age, Fatimah revealed that more than 1,000 boxes of the ‘Little Reader’s Treasure Box’ filled with children story books and playing cards and 1,000 copies of books on the guideline to provide quality care for young children at home, which have been sent, were stuck at the three locations in Sarikei and Sibu where the programme was supposed to be held starting from July 3.
“The items were supposed to be distributed to new mothers at hospitals and health clinics so that mothers can read it to their babies to give them a good head start,” she said.
“We do not care about backgrounds or creed because all we want is to reach out to provide our children with reading materials to ensure they get quality care in the home,” she added while emphasising that mothers especially in rural areas have difficulty obtaining such reading material for their babies and children.
Despite PH becoming the new government, Fatimah stressed that ministries’ commitment especially for the welfare and wellbeing of the people should not be changed or compromised.
As for a scheduled meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is also the Minister of Women, Family and Community Development, on July 27, Fatimah assured that all these issues to streamline workflow and improve coordination between Sarawak and federal government will be brought up.
“I am also concerned that matters resolved at the federal level somehow get stuck once they reached Sarawak. So there must be something wrong somewhere,” she said.
“We don’t want this to happen. Whether officers from federal or Sarawak department, our objectives are the same.
“When given these responsibilities and tasks under the ministry, we should work closely together and cooperate without having to worry about bureaucracy to fulfil our duties and ensure people received the benefits,” she concluded.