NS trainees tasked to help out victims
PETALING JAYA: National Service (NS) trainees have already been mobilised from camps in affected areas in Johor to help flood victims at relief centres.
NS Training Department director-general Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said that as of noon yesterday, about 100 trainees from four camps had been sent to help out until 6pm.
“We sent one busload of trainees from each camp in Kluang, Air Hitam, Pagoh and Kota Tinggi to relief centres nearest to the camps,” he said, adding that the trainees would be at the centres again at 9am today.
Abdul Halim said that this was the NS Training Department’s immediate response to the call by Women, Family and Community Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil (who called the IGP 3 times in fear of drowning) for NS trainees to help.
-Star Online, Monday January 15, 2007
They are talking about sending the National Service trainees to Johor to help the flood victims. Why the National Service trainees? These are but schoolchildren. Have they been trained in how to handle emergencies and national disasters? Why not send the army, riot police, police field force, or any other men who have been properly trained and are being paid to risk their lives? Why send schoolchildren to what may result in their deaths? Is this because schoolchildren cost nothing while uniformed personnel need to be paid and the government has disallowed overtime and outstation allowances?
Yes, there are whispers that government personnel have been told to cut down their outstation trips because the government no longer has any money to pay them this extra cost. Whenever it is unavoidable and the personnel are forced to make trips away from the office, then they are supposed to pay for the cost from their own pockets and claim back the expenses on their return. But not many government officers want to do this because they would be reimbursed many months later.
-Raja Petra Kamarudin
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4 comments:
psycho
haha psycho? no-brainer shud be the better term.. at least psycho's still got brains..
The way I understood it they're just going to the relief centres and not the actual flooded areas. If that's all they're doing then it'll probably be a good experience for them. Doesn't excuse the blatantly obvious cost-cutting measures though.
yeah i agree with u jeff..the news report states 'relief centres' but im not sure if going to the relief centres means putting them in the risk of danger like wat happened to Shahrizat and her convoy..anyway i still think NS shud be abolished despite all the benefits because the cons seem to be more and worse.
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