December 7, 2019
Good morning. Am up and ready to go to Melaka. To answer the question of a reader, I am going to and fro Melaka – KL by YB Larry Soon’s car. Larry lives in the same neighbourhood of Mont Kiara and he has an officer Colin, who will drive us around.
This morning posting is about my constituency activities from yesterday. I had two meetings with constituents yesterday morning. One has visited me a few times and is making good progress. Many constituents will contact my office for an appointment but most will just walk in on the day, to try their luck. All tend to have unique and special issues.
Generally, we deal with federal government matters, and typically involve citizenship, crime, and education issues. We also get local government, traffic and community housing disputes which are strictly not under our jurisdiction, so on those matters we will provide advice, facilitate arbitration and generally encourage parties to peacefully settle scores.
Some visit us for my signature to attest official documents. Some try to ask us for money, beg us to pay their electricity bills, to pay for school fees, of which we definitely will not consider. Instead we will record their details for poverty and welfare considerations subject to further verification. This is where we rarely but do visit their homes and help them get on to government welfare programmes.
Overall, my officers and interns will handle about 80% of the cases, and my professional volunteers of lawyers, accountants, engineers and businessmen will handle the remaining (more serious) 20% of the cases. The volunteers serve on Wednesday night from 8 pm to 10 pm. I am mostly in my Kinrara office in the mornings when Parliament is not sitting or when I am not overseas on official duties. On average we handle 800 to 1,000 cases a year.
Lastly, just some photos of our annual thanksgiving lunch which we had in Bamboo Garden, Summit USJ with YB Michelle and Councillors.
