By Brad Rantayy
MIRI, July 1: The Endowment Fund Sarawak (EFS) and ‘Bantuan Ibu Bersalin (BIB) or postnatal aid for mothers will be accessible on a trial basis under the ‘iSarawakCare’ app starting July 3, disclosed Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah.
The ministry is hoping to use digital channels to reach out to a bigger proportion of its target groups, she revealed during a press conference after presenting EFS, BIB, and other grants to recipients in this division here today.
Also present were Assistant Minister of Women, Family and Childhood Development Rosey Yunus and Assistant Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Sebastian Ting.
“We hope that the app (iSarawakCare) can help us to better improve our efficiency in giving our services to our target groups so that they can benefit from these initiatives provided by the state government for the rakyat,” Fatimah explained.
She added that her ministry has been working with Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) and Socoe Sdn Bhd to digitise its services (initiatives under her ministry) into an online application.
“For starters, we’ll begin (on trial basis) digitalising the EFS and BIB initiatives…before proceeding with others.
“We are hoping to create a new one-stop centre platform whereby people (Sarawakians) can easily access and sign up for various initiatives under my ministry that are being provided by the state government,” she said.
Fatimah pointed out that Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) state government has always been committed to helping the rakyat via various initiatives.
“You cannot find any other government like ours, as I said. Even though we (Sarawak) have a small population, but we have bigger hearts to help for the rakyat’s social wellbeing,” she added.
On another matter, as of June 26 this year, a total of 12,486 newborn babies have been registered with her ministry, while a total of 14,600 mothers have signed up for the BIB initiative.
Meanwhile, for the Kenyalang Gold Card (KGC), as of June 29 this year, 157,055 senior citizens have signed up.
“For Miri, we have 17,025 senior citizens registered or 37.1 per cent out of 45,900 senior citizens in this division,” Fatimah said. — DayakDaily
