SITF & Federal Agency Officials - A smart partnership

Dato Siva, Dato Salleh, Dato Ghani and Datuk Denison

One of the major breakthroughs experienced by SITF since its establishment is the cooperation and joint action it has secured with Federal agencies. When the Prime Minister established SITF he directed the Secretary for the Government to appoint senior Federal officers at the Deputy Secretary General or Deputy Director General level to be permanent members of the Taskforce. In this context thirteen federal ministry officials were appointed.

SITF has had various meeting as a full group in June and July. Subsequently we have been working in focus groups with specific regards to respective agency areas and also Roundtable Discussions on a number of critical areas requiring policy review and intervention. In addition SITF cooperation with district level agencies is most significant.

Delivery issues at the district level

At the district level that we have come to realise that they are major issues and concerns with regards to delivery and implementation which requires urgent intervention. It is at the district level that ordinary people are interacting with the government. They come face to face with specific request and needs. Font desk and counter service becomes most essential and many have difficulties to access these services.

Some frequent complaints are communication problems. While we agree that the national language is widely spoke and is no longer a problem even for minority communities however among the bottom 40% of our society and among the older generation they are more comfortable with Tamil speaking officers or officers who are culturally very sensitive to their needs and concerns. Another major hurdle is access to actual location to the office and the bureaucracy whom the poor and low income sees as a barrier to access to services.

New Initiatives

It is in this context, the Chairman of SITF, Datuk Dr Subramanian initiated the Program Mesra Rakyat which is a program at the community level where the agencies come to meet the people. While these kinds of program have been organized in the past, however through SITF for the first time a large number of Federal agencies have come together to meet the Indian community.

The major service providers with SITF are:-

• Social Welfare Department (Welfare assistance)
• Registration Department (documentation on citizenship)
• SOSCO (workers compensation)
• Job’s Malaysia (employment opportunities
• Yayasan Tekun (micro loans)
• Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (micro loans)
• Public Complaints Bureau (general complaints on agencies)
• Youth & Sports Department (youth programs & skills training –IKBN)
• Industrial Training Institute (ILP for skills training)
• ICU (on poverty registration in e-kasih)
• Community College (providing continuing education opportunities)
• The Police also played an active role through displays and registration of Rakan Kop

In addition to the public event the real impact was in the monthly review meetings with the agencies. In five of the districts a number of district level agency meetings were held to review the output and impact of the program. The key focus was on solving the cases assigned to them. They provided a status report on their activities. We reviewed the data, struggles and set new targets.

The community leaders and volunteers dimension is also very important aspect. The monthly review meeting gave a good opportunity to touch base and review the situation. The local community leaders are then able to assist the agencies especially in seeking to contact them and also in address language communication issues.

Strengthening District delivery mechanism

One major focus in improving delivery and implementation is strengthening the interagency coordination at the district level. The monthly review meeting with SITF is developing into a permanent mechanism to ensure sustainability of the initiative.

The six districts have been adopted as a pilot project by SITF. In this context SITF will be hosting a Workshop on District level Case Management and Counseling from December 7 to 9, 2010 at the Institute Sosial Malaysia (ISM).

This program is sponsored by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development with the support of the National Counselors Accreditation Board and the Implementation Coordination Unit  (ICU) of the PM Department. We are expecting about 100 to 120 participants representing the various agencies from the Federal and district levels including community leaders from the six areas.

The findings and outcomes of this workshop will set the agenda and targets for the enlarging of outreach and extension of district level work in 2011.