I am a single jobless divorcee in my late 40s. For the 23 years that I worked, I had been paying my taxes diligently and even when I lost my job as the company closed, I still went to the tax department and cleared all my taxes.

I have been jobless for the last seven years and have been living on my savings and some financial assistance from my brothers and sisters as well as doing whatever small jobs I can find to earn some money.

I live in a rented home which I pay from my savings which I have built up from the 23 years that I worked and the financial assistance from my family as well as from whatever jobs I get on freelance basis which is hardly anything.

Although I have 23 years experience, I have not been able to get a decent job due to my age.

Anyway, when the government announced that every household earning less than RM3,000 per month will be entitled to the RM500 aid, I was happy and thought that I will be eligible as I am jobless and do not even have an income.

When this aid was announced, there was no other criteria accept that each household with total income less than RM3,000 will be eligible, there was no condition that one should be married or have dependents and it was based solely on household which means each home, and as I live alone, it should be still considered a household.

When the forms for BR1M were released, I applied for the aid but was rejected without any reason. When I went to the website concerned, I discovered that there were many conditions to fulfill before getting the aid and that single jobless people with no dependents are not eligible.

I then wrote a letter of complaint to the Prime Minister's Department via their website telling then that its not fair that single people who are jobless and living alone are not eligible and requested for them to change the criteria, after all when I was working, this is the same Government who happily took taxes from me which I had paid diligently.

After about two days, I received a copy of a mail from the Prime Minister's Department where they had forwarded my complaint to a few people in the Treasury Department and instructed them to look into my complaint and reply within five working days.

The email from the Pejabat Perdana Menteri was send to the Treasury Department on the 21/2/2012, and seeing that letter, I was quite surprised that PM's Department had looked into my complaint and given instruction to the respective department to respond within the stipulated time.

I waited and I waited but sadly five working days passed and I did not receive any reply.

Finally, on the 2/3/2012 which is 10 days later, I wrote another letter in Malay to the same person in the Prime Minister's Department who had forwarded my mail to the treasury, telling him that it's very shameful that the Treasury Department has chosen to ignore the instruction from Prime Minister's Department to respond to my complaint. I requested for him to look into the matter.

The same evening, I again received a c.c. mail from the Prime Minister's Department who had just forwarded my second letter with the first mail attached to the Treasury Department again, without giving any instructions or even querying why they had not responded within the stipulated time. It was just a forwarded mail.

I am still waiting for a reply on my appeal. Is this how the government departments respond to complaints, appeals and letters from the rakyat?

It is really very shameful to see that other departments totally ignore instructions from Prime Minister's Department.

This tells me that they could not care less nor have any respect for the PM as they choose to ignore instructions that come from his department.

I am still waiting and I hope that the PM will change the criteria to also give the aid to single jobless people and not only to those who are married.

After all we too paid our taxes when we were working. It's really a shame that the PM thinks he does not owe a duty towards single jobless people. When we work, the government happily takes our money by force, and when aid is given, we are forgotten.

Is this the kind of uncaring government we want, if this is how the government responds to the people's complaints, appeals and requests, then they cannot blame people for voting for the opposition.

If they can give the aid to a MCA datuk, why not to a single, jobless person.

What makes me even more angry is not just that my application was rejected, but the fact that my complaint and request was totally ignored. They did not even bother to reply to my mail, even if it's going to be a no.

I feel ashamed that I have such a government in place that does not care for me.