Hey. JKM or Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat, also known as the Department of Social Welfare, plays a pivotal role in the well-being of the nation’s citizens.
FYI, I have an OKU (orang kurang upaya) a.k.a PWD (person with disabilities) brother. He has his OKU card registered under JKM, and he gets his EPOKU allowance, given to disabled workers (Read more here) every month. It was formerly known as EPC (Elaun Pekerja Cacat), but thanks to the OKU community, The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development has changed the name to EPOKU (Elaun Pekerja OKU).
Burdening Procedures
The effing thing with this allowance is that these people have to renew their applications every year. I don’t mind at all if JKM allows these people to do it online, or at least using the courier. BUT NO, JKM requires them to physically come to the office to submit the renewal forms. What is the need to trouble these people? They are in need of money, but they have to SPEND MONEY on transportation JUST TO SUBMIT SOME FORMS TO GET FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE! How ironic, eh?
Unclear Instuctions
It’s not just that, until now, they don’t provide clear instructions on their tasteless and awfully developed website. Because of the lack of information, it requires telephone conversations but they rarely pick up the calls. So what they should do then? Of course, go to the office just to ask one or two simple questions. LOL. I’ve been to one of their offices, and it’s not even disabled-friendly. The escalators and elevators were about to go kaput, and you can even get lost in the building because there were no clear directions to direct the visitors!
Recently, the ministry came up with a programme called JKMPay in which only they will only pay 50% of the allowance amount in cash. They will store the balance as e-wallet money which JKMPay receivers can only use at participating stores (Read more here). The Doraemon minister, Rina Harun noted it’s an initiative to avoid the OKU misusing the given allowance. I really thought of pooping on the minister’s head when I read the statement. Hello, the rich taxpayers paid the taxes. The money pays the civil servants’ salaries and other benefits given to them. But the ministry is making a fuss about what the OKU people are doing with the small amount of money? The monthly allowance amount is not even near half of the civil servants’ recurring salaries. LOL
Unempathetic Welfare Officers
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that every staff in the ministry are gifted dumbasses or something. Even my late mom was a welfare officer. But she was undoubtedly an outstanding, dedicated staff, committed to helping those in need (You can throw up, but somehow I inherited her kindness. Hehehe.). Even when the rule book said no, she would do everything she could. Once she told me about a poor aunty. She had no money at all to repair her leaking roof. Although the forking bureaucracy required the aunty to apply and wait until her house gets flooded, my mom urged the help to be carried out instantly. Problem solved! The aunty was so happy and thanked my mom thousands of times.
Then there’s this one time, an officer refused to attend a person who came to the office without an appointment. The officer asked him to go back and come back only when he has an appointment. But my angelic mom helped to attend to the client even though it was not her case. She told me everybody’s not that busy at that time, so why would the client need to come back later? She further said to me, “I just can’t stand these people working for this department but have a lack of empathy”.
Who are They Actually Serving?
So, who is actually JKM serving? Those in need or their own welfare? Don’t they know there are thousands of people waiting for the opportunity to become civil servants? And those who got the job don’t want to do their job? The Doraemon minister and the ministry can come up with all these stupid suggestions and regulations. But if there were more staff like my late mom, the world would definitely be a better place. As if everyone is not aware that typically the higher authorities don’t give a single fork to whatever’s happening between the staff and the clients, as long as there’s no issue. LOL
Please Improve
JKM, please improve. You’re not really giving your best to help those in need. You have the lousiest of everything. You have an official website, then you have another website for financial assistance that people without googling skills wouldn’t know. Even when you’ve said that the (first time) application for the allowance can already be made online, the option is not even accessible and people still need to submit their application to the nearest office. Can you at least provide us with information on how much did it cost for the useless website? Did the allocated fund go to someone else’s pocket? Because I’m pretty sure a well-paid website developer won’t come up with that rubbish.
I’m not into politics but I hope Ras Adiba Radzi (representative for the OKU), Parti Sosialis Malaysia (read more here), and also everyone who is capable, can fight the system and make a difference for the betterment of the OKU.
Thanks for reading.