AS SHE stood outside her home for her food “basket” to be delivered to her by volunteers, tears began flowing down the woman’s cheeks.

The sight of approaching volunteers, and the relief of finally getting some food for her family was too much for the woman, Nangka assemblyman Dr Annuar Rapaee wrote of the incident in his constituency on his Facebook page, on Monday.

“She was already shedding tears when she saw our volunteers from afar. Finally food has reached them,” Annuar, who is also the state’s Assistant Minister of Assistant Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research, wrote.

Annuar said the woman and her family could not afford to buy food as they no longer had money.

Her husband, the family’s breadwinner, was a daily paid odd job handyman.

He had since lost his source of income because of the restrictions on movement and shutdown of businesses as the state grappled to contain Covid-19.

“When the volunteers were informed of the family’s predicament, they immediately made arrangements to send her the food basket, including infant formula for the couple’s small child,” Annuar said.

He did not say where in his constituency the family was from but his posting seemed to indicate they were from Sibu.

In his post, he appealed to “Facebook friends” in this town on the Rajang River to watch out for their neighbours, who might be in distress with the MCO now in its fifth week.

“Facebook friends in Sibu, we are now in a difficult period.

“Take a keen interest and ask your neighbours if they have enough rice and food to eat.

“If possible, help them out or assist them by sending us a WhatsApp message requesting for food assistance,” Annuar wrote, asking followers to use the system the local administrative office has set up for the people to make aid requests.

Opposition reps cry foul

As allegations of families in dire need not receiving aid continue, DAP assemblymen in Sibu, Irene Chang (Bukit Assek) and David Wong (Pelawan), are asking why they are kept out of the food distribution work.

“Our issue at hand in Sibu has been the distribution of provisions to all the names submitted to the Sibu Disaster Management Committee through the WhatsApp number which they have created,” Chang said.

She said there “have been constant calls from these persons that they are yet to receive the provisions”.

“I have tried to liaise with the persons in charge of these food relief centres and yet, the complaints continue to come in,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

Chang said she has conveyed the problem to Annuar and the Resident of Sibu Charles Siaw, but still the issue has not been satisfactorily resolved.

She said it was for this reason that she felt it would have been better if assembly reps were in charge of funding for their respective constituencies.

The Sarawak government has earmarked RM200,000 for the food assistance programme to each of the state’s 82 constituencies.

While Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) assemblymen directly handle their budget, funding for opposition held constituencies are handled by the divisional Disaster Management Committee.

“We would be in a better position to know which and where our people are more in urgent need and to mobilise our own people to distribute the provisions urgently,” Chang said.

“If the state government’s intention is to provide for the needy, including those in the opposition constituencies, then they should have recognised that this would have been a better way of ensuring that none is left out,” she added.

Her Pelawan colleague Wong agrees.

“This is the time to put politics aside and we all should focus on the people’s welfare such as making sure that the needy families would not go without essential food items,” he said.

Wong said the state government “has no reason to exclude the opposition assemblymen from the food aid programme”.

“DAP in Sibu have worked together with Annuar since the implementation of the food aid programme.

“Although we’re not happy that we were excluded in the team headed by Sibu divisional Disaster Management Committee, we nevertheless are monitoring the delivery of the food baskets in all the five constituencies in Sibu and are helping to spread the news to the ordinary people on the street on how to get the food aid.

“GPS should put politics aside when our fellow Sarawakians are crying for help and when the war with the coronavirus is far from over.” – April 15, 2020.