While creating a caring society is encouraged, it is more productive to help vagrants to be self-reliant, thereby making good and productive charitable acts.

Kindness should not be distorted. Providing food and clothing alone are not sufficient to solve their problems. The authorities and society should probe  their problems, eg whether they turned to life on the streets due to illness, disability, drug addition, mental illness or etc which left them incapable of being self-dependent, thereby resorting to begging.

We believe that everyone should live with dignity. We cannot assume that doing charitable deeds is enough at the surface, but we must help the dispossessed to reintegrate into society fundamentally.

Yesterday, Federal Territories Ministry Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said that to deal with the problem of beggars and homelessness, soup kitchens will be prohibited from distributing free food within a 2km radius of Lot 10 shopping complex.

Hence, I urge DAP Member of Parliament for Bukit Bintang Fong Kui Lun to assist these soup kitchens to register the recipients of the free meals, compile all relevant data and forward them to the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry besides the Social Welfare Department.

The federal government and the opposition must work together to create a caring society so that the disadvantaged or underprivileged groups in Malaysian may live with dignity.

As the constituency’s elected representative Fong Kui Lun has the obligation to assist these vulnerable groups. He cannot simply exclude these people from sight but must take the initiative.

Meanwhile, I oppose Tengku Adnan’s method of dealing with the city’s vagrants. Compassion should be shown to the underprivileged and not leveraging on the law to punish the lesser fortunate who live in our midst. On the contrary, the government should encourage creating a caring society and strengthen society’s safety net.

LAU CHIN KOK is Federal Territories MCA Publicity Bureau chairperson.