Malaysia

Stateless people deserve aid, too, says MP after man dies of hunger

Discrimination over assistance unacceptable, says DAP’s Vivian Wong after learning of incident on Twitter

Updated 2 years ago · Published on 06 Jul 2021 8:00AM

Stateless people deserve aid, too, says MP after man dies of hunger
Sandakan MP Vivian Wong delivering food aid to 40 families in Kg Tanah Hitam, Libaran. – The Vibes pic, July 6, 2021

by Rebecca Chong

SANDAKAN – Aid should be extended to all, including stateless people, said Sandakan MP Vivian Wong, after discovering that a man had died of hunger in the Libaran constituency.

The DAP MP said she learnt of the news after the NGO, Impactive Malaysia, shared about the incident on Twitter.

The victim was from Kg Tanah Hitam Mile 9 in Libaran.

Although residents could not confirm the cause of the man’s death some two months ago, Wong slammed Libaran MP Datuk Zakaria Mohd Edris for allowing such a tragedy to happen.

“Local representatives must play their roles to help both the locals and migrants. Zakaria has an allocation of more than RM3 million a year, and in addition to that, RM300,000 for food baskets.   

I am not (celebrity Muslim preacher) Ebit Lew, but I am also concerned with the condition of the people in Libaran. 

“It is not my constituency, but I still tried my best to supply aid after knowing (of) this tragic incident,” Wong said in a statement.  

She also said that she had distributed food aid sourced from public donations to 40 families in Kg Hitam, Libaran.

She said she only has a RM300,000 fund to assist her constituents, who include thousands of families.  

“Since we opened an application for food baskets yesterday, we had received over 3,500 applications in just two days,” she said.  

Wong said she had taken out a few items from the food basket shopping list to churn out more food baskets with the excess money. – The Vibes, July 6, 2021

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