I refer to the letter NS deaths: don't push blame to parents .

Firstly, the fact is our Malaysian government has required those youth selected to must report for the NS training else run afoul against the law, as amply set out in the case of the young man who was hauled to court for skipping his training call up on the basis he has had to bring bread to the table.

Thus under the law, for those selected, doing the NS is compulsory. This clears any ambiguity of voluntariness that might be inadvertently associated with the NS training programme, in particular the notion and expectation of parents to ensure the physical and medical adequacy of their children for training.

For the government to make the NS mandatory, the onus that goes with such mandating will, of course, have been fully understood. Structurally, we see such obligations manifested in various forms such as trainee transportation, camp design and localities, provisions, training support and aids, security, welfare, training models, and training outcomes. There is no doubt the government understands it has accountability in the NS training programme, right down to implied details that go hand-in-hand with such responsibility.

The NS director-general will be letting Malaysia down even if he merely implied an expectation of parents to check the adequacy of their children for the NS, for this can be seen as shifting selective responsibilities away from the government. As prefaced above, the government has taken full responsibility to ensure the NS training program will be safe for each every trainee.

In the absence of voluntariness, such as a trainee volunteering to do the NS, it is morally wrong for the DG to attempt shifting responsibilities, unless there is the moral ground for the government to do so as would be if it was for the immediate safety of the nation such as in the outbreak of war.

Secondly, the NS is not for military purposes. The NS is but a part of nation-building. And it is not made compulsory to all youth, by virtue being only a part of nation-building and not exclusively so.

The single priority for the DG is therefore to ensure safety for all in the NS camps. And, if not already stipulated somewhere, it is exactly for the sake of safety that there is a DG position in the NS. This priority is very clear, as well as doable. And I write from my experience of having been one of the pioneer camp commandants for the NS. To the DG, I shall repeat two points of what I suggested then:

• Each NS camp must have its respective safety case, moulded at least from a Qualitative Risk Analysis

• Each accident must be professionally investigated and closed out, utilising appropriate approved investigative tools, such as Root Cause Analysis

To elaborate such safety responsibilities, I shall refer to two items which the DG will be familiar with:

1.‘Flying Fox’ exercise. What is the failure mode and engineering analysis to which each an every Flying Fox is designed, constructed, tested, and maintained for approval /certification as being safe for use? Consider for one, roping around a big tree may look fail safe, but this method does not produce engineering numerals. Another is the type and standard of wire rope used for the main line. Are these conducive to preservation of life?

2. Number of trainees per camp. What safety indexes are used to determine a camp can be populated with 200, 300 or (as in the camp I was in then) 600 trainees? Even our military recruit training centers do not handle batches of 600 recruits at any one time in a single camp.

To conclude, the DG must be cognisant of transparency in all the camps to mitigate tendencies towards commercialisation of the NS for which may breed the perception of corruption. A trainee on a Flying Fox exercise has his/her life hanging on the wire – should the supply of this wire be tainted with the evils of corruption, a youth’s life could be on the line in that camp.

Surely, it would be national loss rather than nation-building being achieved should that wire lead to an accident.