In accordance with the tradition of previous Governors of Jakarta during Eid Ul Fitr, yesterday the Governor of Jakarta Fauzi Bowo and his staffs held an open house at the City Hall allowing citizens, mostly poor people, to meet and shake hands with them.
After that, the Governor's staffs gave each of the guests Rp 40.000,- in cash and a package containing Cooking Oil, Sugar and Snacks.
Unfortunately, things do not work according to plan when the number of people grew larger than expected causing chaos, many children and elderly people were hurt, two of them were taken to a hospital.
Due to this fact, the City's Regional Secretary explained that actually they have prepared gifts for 6.000 people, which is 2.000 more than last year, but considering that the people were not patient in queuing then the tragedy occured.
Meanwhile, the Governor has publicly apologized and promised that the tragedy would not happen again in future, for which purpose such event would be conducted through Villages.
For details on the above, please click here, here, here and here.
It is very sad to know that such tragedy could ever happen at a capital city like Jakarta, especially that the City has enacted a by-law in 2007 which forbid giving money to beggars (= poor people). Hopefully it would not happen again in the future.
Photo: Courtesy of Kompas.
2 comments:
Harry...
I thought these types of alms giving events were banned and anyone wanting to provide money or goods had to do so through a recognized agency?
I am guessing that the government has an agency for this purpose but it is not the Governor and his staff operating out of city hall.
Rob,
Gifts related to Islam e.g Zakat and the like should be channeled through agencies (Barnaz, etc).
However, according to the Sekda (Regional Secretary) what was given on 21 Sept was not Zakat but other kind of gift like 'Angpao'.
And the governor said that the money were wholly donated by businessmen.
Post a Comment