City Hall has been monitoring pedestrian malls and traffic light intersections around the State Capital in a bid to keep these areas free of beggars.A spokesman for the agency’s Enforcement Department said daily patrols of Kota Kinabalu were made to this end.ADVERTISEMENT
“Our officers do their best to disperse groups of vagrants from the public places in the City,” he said.
“They ask beggars, who have entered any of the shops, to vacate the premises.
Enforcement officers rounded up several vagrants, including children, during a recent check of this traffic light intersection near Wawasan Plaza.
“Nevertheless, once our Enforcement staff leave to go elsewhere, the vagrants are back to making a nuisance of themselves.”
He said City Hall had even tried counselling the child-beggars but it was difficult to dissuade them from continuing to bother the public.ADVERTISEMENT
He admitted that it was exhausting trying to discourage vagrants from loitering in the State Capital.
“There is only so much we can do under our by-laws,” he said.
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The spokesman stressed that the agency served in a secondary capacity when it came dealing with this problem.
“City Hall is only an ‘agensi bantuan (assistive agency)’ which facilitates the efforts of those authorities with the ordinance to intervene.”
A child-beggar leans on a metal post near the Centre Point traffic light intersection, waiting for the cars to come to a halt.
“Any vagrants, caught by our Enforcement officers, are handed over to the Police, as well as Immigration and Welfare Department officers, for further action.”
He said City Hall was slated to participate in an ‘ops bersepadu (integrated operation)’ with these agencies to tackle the beggar woes in Kota Kinabalu.
“This matter was raised during a security meeting earlier this year.
“We just do not know when the operation will be carried out as no date has been set.”
A Welfare Department spokesman said it would speak to the chairperson of the meeting about having this exercise performed as soon as it was possible to do so.
“Welfare officers have rounded up the beggars in the City on several occasions since January,” he said.
He said local vagrants were processed with the intention of “saving” them, according to the conditions stipulated in the Destitute Persons Act 1977.
“Our personnel conduct a screening to try to trace their next-of-kin.
Young vagrants sit on the curbs along the driveway to the elevated parking above the hotel in Sinsuran.
“The latter will be counselled and have to fill out a form acknowledging that they will look out for their less-well-to do family, before these beggars can be released.”
In cases where no relatives were found, he said the agency initiated proceedings to have the homeless citizen sent to a government institution.
“We have to obtain a court order before the vagrant can be admitted to the ‘Desa Bina Diri’ home.
“There, the individual receives guidance on how to become self-sufficient and independent.”
He said there were presently about 30 individuals at the home which is located in Manggatal.
The spokesman said the agency had no jurisdiction to deal with beggars who were not Sabahans.
“Any foreigners we catch are handed over to our peers at the Immigration Department.”
The spokesmen were responding to the observations from Hotline callers about the increasing number of beggars, particularly children, seen around Wawasan Plaza, Sinsuran and Segama areas of the City.
Most were concerned about the kids, who gathered at the traffic-lights on Jalan Tun Razak and Jalan Tun Fuad Stephens, begging for alms when the vehicles came to a halt at the intersections there.
Patrons of the Ramadan stalls in Asia City are tailed by a child-beggar.
One driver noticed that some drivers wound down their windows to give these children some money.
He felt the vagrants were taking advantage of the charitable spirit which prevailed as Hari Raya Aidil Fitri drew near.
Another motorist was alarmed to find the youngsters sitting on the curbs along the driveway to the elevated parking lots for a hotel opposite the handicraft market.
Others were unnerved by the child-beggars who tailed them while they walked through the Ramadan Bazaar in Asia City and Raya stalls in Segama.
A bank staff was followed by two kids all the way from Sinsuran, where she works, to Segama around noon on a Tuesday in April.
One of the pair kept patting her on the shoulder, hoping that she would relent and give him and his friend some money.
A civil servant was uncomfortable about the children who hovered around him as he tried to buy some clothing at a Raya stall.
The youngsters kept getting in his way when he took out his wallet, with many of them staring at the money he had inside.
A spokesman for City Hall’s Complaints and Public Relations Department said the agency had received over 30 grievances about child-beggars, so far, this month.
“The majority of these reports came in after the middle of April,” he said.
“Most of the grouses concerned the presence of kids around the traffic-light intersections near Wawasan Plaza and Segama Commercial Centre.”
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