Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Hannah Yeoh should meet the disabled community to obtain its feedback for the upcoming federal budget, says disabled activist Anthony Thanasayan.

“The biggest question is: Has she (Yeoh) met the disabled? Why were we not called?

“The budget is coming out. The previous administration would call us before every budget to get feedback, ask us what our problems were, and what we needed,” Anthony told Malaysiakini.

“Since Pakatan Harapan took over, we have not gotten any calls,” he added.

Yeoh had been quoted by Bernama as saying yesterday that the Social Welfare Department would consider requests by parents to introduce autism sub-categories in the disabled person’s (OKU) card so that autistic children could access more specific services.

She had also said that many parents did not register their children who had autism as an OKU, as they believed it was unnecessary to do so if the child received early intervention.

Yeoh had touched upon the reluctance of parents to register disabled children in July, when she urged people with disabilities to register with the Social Welfare Department.

According to The Star, she had cited stigma and the reluctance of parents to label children as “differently abled” as reasons for the register’s inaccurate numbers.

However, Anthony said low registration numbers for the disabled community in general were “nothing new”.

Instead of urging parents to register their disabled children, the activist said Yeoh and minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail should first review the services provided by the Social Welfare Department.

“Since Yeoh and Wan Azizah have taken over, they should review the Welfare Department, investigate and improve on it.

“They should be checking on how the poor are getting health (benefits), how to reach out to poor, disabled people; but they’ve done nothing of the sort,” he claimed.

The federal budget for 2019 will be tabled on Nov 2.