Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah
KUCHING (May 30): The Bantuan Khas Sarawakku Sayang (BKSS) 6.0 announced on last Friday is timely with the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in Sarawak which started from yesterday until June 11.
Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said the government made the right move by stepping in with cash assistance, rebates on utility bills to help those who are affected the most by this pandemic.
“We are living in difficult times. The people have experienced loss of household income or no income at all, experiencing anxiety and worry about their ability to provide food for the family, the bills that need to be paid.
“Our B40, hawkers, petty traders the poor in our society specifically, and rakyat in general, who are in difficult times such as this must be assisted,” she said.
Fatimah believed that the assistance from the government will help to address their hardships, provide them a breather and reduce the people’s level of mental stress and anxiety.
She said the frontliners, namely the health workers, the enforcement personnel deserved to be recognised as they have worked long hours, sacrifice family time, expose themselves to health risk to mitigate and contain the spread of Covid-19 to save the people’s lives.
Even the media are also recognised for their high risk work in disseminating current and correct information to the public with regards to Covid-19, she added.
Fatimah said a number of others assistance will also provide a very important safety net for wellbeing of the target group.
“For example, the district and divisional welfare staff who have been entrusted to provide cooked food at the quarantine centres, quarantine and low-risk patients treatment centres (PKRC), personnel on duty at roadblocks, sending food baskets at lockdown villages, longhouses, and recently to those under home quarantine, she added.
“Thank you all. May God grant all of you safety and blessing,” said Fatimah.