IS MALAYSIA NOW RICH ENOUGH TO SPEND RM550 MIL ON NS 2.0?

Is the country doing so well that we have RM400 million to spare for a programme deemed unnecessary enough to suspend?

Mike Tan, The Ant Daily

Like a bad penny that always turns up, the National Service (NS) is scheduled to return!

The last time NS dominated national headlines was in January this year, when the government announced that it would suspend the programme for a year.

The reason? The country was in dire straits and in such need of funds that it would save RM400 million from the annual budget if it was suspended.

Prime Minister Najib Razak actually used that figure in a live telecast address, stating, “The National Service programme will be frozen in 2015, which will give us savings of RM400 million, so as to enable a review and improvement of the programme.”

And now, even before a year is up, the programme is all ready to start again. According to National Service Training Department director-general Mohmed Asri Yusof, 400 trainees will undergo at Princess Haliza Camp in Sepang from Oct 19.

This is still 2015, isn’t it?

Why has the programme restarted before the year is up? Is the country doing so well that we have RM400 million to spare for a programme deemed unnecessary enough to suspend?

But those aren’t the only questions we should be asking.

Mohamed Asri also shared some interesting figures regarding the new NS, dubbed National Service 2.0.

Firstly, he said that it used to cost RM9,000 per trainee for three months and under the old NS programme, 80,000 to 90,000 trainees were selected annually.

Going by these numbers, the cost of training for three months would be RM720 million to RM810 million, a number closer to RM1 billion than RM400 million that Najib quoted in January.

This doesn’t take into account the other costs – operation, maintenance, administration, planning – of the programme.

So how much did we actually save, RM400 million or nearly double that?

Mohmed Asri Yusof

Since the programme is about to start in Oct 19, we saved nothing at all! In fact, we’re already spending money on the new NS programme.

So how much would the new programme cost?

Once again, according to Mohamed Asri, the department intends to spend RM5,000 to RM6,000 per trainee for two months, a cost savings of at least RM3,000 compared to the RM9,000 of the old NS.

In light of this savings, the department will call up 110,000 to 120,000 trainees, an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 participants.

Even then, the total cost of the revamped programme would be between RM550 million and RM720 million, a reduction of RM260 million at best estimates (80,000 trainees at RM9,000 vs 110,000 trainees at RM5,000).

At worst, there’s no savings at all (90,000 trainees at RM9,000 vs 120,000 trainees at RM6,000).

But wait a minute, the new programme’s stated training costs will be RM550 million, which far exceeds the RM400 million the government claimed it needed to save previously before!

What about the total cost of the new programme, which is set to offer even more modules –  unity, volunteerism, patriotism, fitness, personal development, career planning, online safety – than the old version?

It would definitely be higher than RM550 million for sure. Even if we just stick to the training costs of RM550 million, things don’t seem to make much sense to the ordinary Malaysian.

How can the government afford spending RM550 million now? Has our economy improved since January 2015?

If we really had RM550 million to spare, we should spend it on other more crucial areas to help boost our country’s economy and financial wellbeing. We cannot afford to waste such an amount on a programme so superfluous that it was suspended in the first place.

The government should continue the suspension and save at least RM550 million. And should we decide to scrap the entire programme, we could save even more.

How can the government advocate such needless spending when there are more pressing matters at hand? With NS’ track record of scandals and allegations of corruption, how much of the RM550 million or more will be siphoned off into the pockets of unscrupulous parties?

It would seem like the authorities are splurging on cake while the rakyat go hungry and suffer as they think about how to make their ends meet.

Has our government managed to secure additional funding that it can now fund a programme costing at least RM550 million – RM110 million or 37.5 per cent more expensive – when we couldn’t afford RM400 million less than eight months ago?

Call me a cynic, but that would be as believable as having a foreigner donate RM2.6 billion into our accounts overnight.

- See more at: http://www.theantdaily.com/Main/Is-Malaysia-now-rich-enough-to-spend-RM550-mil-on-NS-2-0#sthash.XJx9OPXy.dpuf