No discussion on PS1M implementation next year - Maszlee

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 13 (Bernama) – The government will review the implementation of the 1Malaysia Milk Programme (PS1M) before deciding to proceed or cancel the programme next year.

Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik said the programme would not continue this year as it was already November with the school holiday round the corner.

"For this year, it's November and the pupils are (going) on school holiday. The milk has yet to be sent. Surely, we are not going to send the milk to the schools with nobody around," he told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

Maszlee earlier commented on yesterday's news report titled 'The government has no plans to resume the Malaysia Milk Programme (PS1M) for the time being'.

He said PS1M was considered "very scandalous" because not only his party was unaware about the loss of the milk supply but former Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid too (was unaware).

"Last year's (2018) milk project under the old government has failed ... You need to record that, the old government has failed and the milk is gone for a year. We do not know where it went and the minister (from the previous government) also does not know where the milk went, " he said.

Maszlee said the amount of milk allegedly missing also involved millions of ringgit and all schools nationwide did not get the milk supply this year.

According to news reports yesterday, PS1M was a programme under the Supplemental Food Plan (RMT) to distribute milk to poor pupils in schools.

The position of the programme, which was supposed to run since January this year, was still unknown because no milk was distributed to schools since the beginning of this year.

-- BERNAMA