KUALA LUMPUR: The exorbitant cost to rent camps for the National Service (NS) training programme will be reviewed by a committee set up under the Defence Ministry, said its minister Mohamad Sabu.
In the Pakatan Harapan (PH) manifesto, one of its promises include the abolishment of NS as they feel the programme does not meet the objectives and is wasteful.
However, Mohamad said the government takes into account views from parents and other related parties.
"If they insist on the programme being continued, many adjustments need to be done... especially in terms of budget.. which expenses should be reduced... in terms of the costs of renting camps and buses.
"Imagine from the RM8 billion or 43 per cent goes to rental of camps and not on curricular activities and so on," he said during the minister's question time in Dewan Rakyat, here, today.
Mohamad was answering a question posed by Wong Hon Wai (PH-Bukit Bendera) who had asked the minister to state the expenditure for NS, the outcome and the aim of the programme.
It was reported that the committee was currently looking into all aspects of NS, including its budget, efficiency, curriculum and more.
He had said the Cabinet might discontinue the programme because of the current financial situation and if the ministry’s review proved that it had failed to achieve its goal in creating more patriotic and civic-minded Malaysians.
The NS was introduced as a three-month programme in December 2003. It was later halted for a year in 2015 due to budget cuts in the government and reintroduced in 2016 as PLKN 2.0.
Meanwhile Mohamad also stated that the total cost for the NS implementation stood at RM8.43 billion since 2004.
Since 14 years of its implementation, a number of 885,956 youths were trained and from that amount, 356,411 joined the National Service Volunteer Brigade.