MP SPEAKS My colleagues, the MP for Kluang Liew Chin Tong and Parti Amanah Negara strategy director Dzulkefly Ahmad, highlighted how the budget for the Prime Minister’s Department had doubled from RM10 billion in 2009 to RM20 billion in 2016.

At the same time, the jurisdiction, reach and programmes under the Prime Minister’s Department also expanded significantly under Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s tenure. Almost any new, large scale spending programme, whether it is PR1MA housing or the Pan-Borneo Expressway, was parked under the Prime Minister’s Department.

It seems that the same kind of over-reach has been emulated by the Permata programme, which is also parked under the Prime Minister’s Department.

From its initial humble beginnings in providing a conducive learning environment for gifted students aged below five years of age, Permata has significantly expanded its reach and also the number of programmes under its jurisdiction.

For example, in six years, the number of Permata childcare centres or Pusat Anak Permata Negara (PAPN) has increased to a total of 88 centres in every state around the country.

A Kolej Permata Pintar was built in UKM in order to cater to ‘gifted’ students from ages nine to 15 years, at a cost of RM83 million (RM20 million for Phase 1 and RM63 million for Phase 2).

Summer camps are also run, in collaboration with the Center for Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins University, for some of these gifted children.

The Permata Seni programme was then established in order to identify talented children in the area of arts, including singing, dancing and music. A total of RM17.5 million was allocated to this programme from 2010 to 2014.

Perkasa Remaja was then established, for the purpose of reaching out to ‘at risk’ youth by introducing them to community-based preventive programmes (called PERKASA@community) and through a curative camp-based intervention programme (called PERKASA@camp).

The total allocation for Perkasa Remaja from 2010 to 2014 was RM6.4 million.

Permata Kurnia was established as an outreach initiative for autistic children, via an autism centre as well as through research and training. An RM10 million autism centre was built through the Permata Kurnia initiative in 2014.

Permata Insan is an initiative to identify gifted children in the area of Quranic and Islamic studies and is parked under the Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (Usim), with the intention of nurturing these talents as future Islamic scholars.

A total of RM24 million was allocated to Permata Insan. This sum included RM18 million for the building of a Permata Insan Centre at USIM.

Finally, a speciality children’s hospital, called the Hospital Kanak-Kanak Permata, is currently being constructed. The projected cost of this hospital is RM600 million and is financed via a build-lease-maintain-transfer (BLMT) Private Finance Initiative (PFI) model.

According to Permata’s website, this hospital was inspired by the Permata patron Rosmah Mansor, after she had visited many children’s hospitals around the world. The expected completion date for this hospital is in 2017.

All in all, a total of RM518 million has been allocated to Permata for its various programmes, out of which RM190 million was spent on development expenditure, i.e. the building of the various centres and another RM328 million was spent on operating expenditure.

The bulk of this RM328 million goes towards paying the salaries of teachers at the Permata Negara early children learning centres and the staff at the Permata division under the Prime Minister’s Department. (See Table 3 above)

While these initiatives may not be bad initiatives in themselves, the following questions must be raised:

(i) Why are the other ministries or departments not stepping in to lead some of these initiatives, e.g. the Health Ministry for the children’s hospital and the Education Ministry for the identification and training of gifted children, rather than leaving this for Permata to drive?

(ii) To what extent have the various Permata programmes been able to achieve their goals?

(iii) What is to stop Permata from further expanding into other areas which concern the youth and children and over-reaching into more areas?

In the interest of future sustainability, shouldn’t these programmes be parked under existing ministries and/or the relevant government agencies or departments?

Without any checks and balances, Permata may continue to expand in the same manner, as what has been happening in the Prime Minister’s Department over the past eight years under the leadership of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

ONG KIAN MING is the Member of Parliament for Serdang.