HEALTH, SAFETY AND FOOD ASPECTS TO GET SPECIAL ATTENTION AT NATIONAL SERVICE

SIBU (Malaysia), 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 in the country.

Newly appointed NS Training Council chairman 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, a town in East Malaysia state of
Sarawak.

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 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 ostritches.

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. Iban is
one of the indigenous groups in East Malaysia state of Sarawak.

The camp, one of eight in the state, can accommodate 700 trainees at each
session.
-- BERNAMA