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November 15, 2008 12:17 PM
Health, Safety And Food Aspects To Get Special Attention At National Service Camps
SIBU, Nov 15 (Bernama) -- Beginning with the December intake, the health, safety and food aspects will be given special attention at all National Service (NS) training camps.
Newly appointed NS Training Council chairman Datuk Dr Tiki Lafe said that in the last four or five years there had been many problems due to these issues.
"We had trainees getting into accidents, some had died, others were affected by food poisoning and infection.
"If we can successfully take care of them, our image will be greatly enhanced," he told reporters after a dinner last night to mark his visit to the Junaco Park and Bumimas camps here.
Dr Tiki, who took over the post on Oct 1, said he was glad to note that the operators of the 11 camps that he had visited so far had upgraded their buildings to more permanent concrete structures.
"Some, like the one at the Junaco Park Camp, which is one of the biggest camps, have even taken the initiative to add extra facilities at their own expense," he said.
He said that he would come up with guidelines on the minimum requirements of facilities for every camp after visiting all the 85 camps.
He said plans were in the pipeline to introduce a board of visitors consisting of distinguished people in the local community, members of political parties and non-governmental organisations to replace the current team of inspectors to do all the trouble shooting at the camps and look into complaints.
However, there were no plans to modify the existing module to suit those who were physically very fit and the 60 per cent who were not.
On the problem of shirkers, he said that for every series there were at least 3,000 shirkers nationwide.
"They are not really shirkers but people who are basically scared of the training, those who are already working elsewhere or are still schooling but cannot leave half-way.
Meanwhile, Junaco Park camp operator Kiu Siong Hee told reporters that the 50ha camp had undergone upgrading in 2006 at a cost of RM1.3 million to, among others, convert the wooden structures into concrete ones.
"We are determined to give trainees selected for our camp the best, if not better, facilities to make their experience here a memorable one.
We are planting rare species of plants like the "Tongkat Ali" so that the trainees will have greater knowledege about our plants and their medicinal values," he said.
Besides fish ponds stocked with the giant Arapaima fish from South America and most local species and with fountains built into them, there are also birds, deer, ponies, monkeys, geese and rabbits at the camp with plans to add peacocks and ostriches.
He said the gem of the new facilities was the six-door traditional Iban longhouse, which was expected to be completed this month, to introduce one of Sarawak's most popular tourism icons to trainees from outside the state.
The camp, one of eight in the state, can accommodate 700 trainees at each session.
-- BERNAMA
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