Deputy Defence Minister Zainal Abidin Zin was grilled by two opposition MPs in Parliament this afternoon on the allocation for the controversial National Service (NS) programme which they claimed was 'missing' from Budget 2005.

Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) first brought up the subject when she claimed that the government has not included the allocation for the NS programme in its budget for next year.

Debating the defence ministry's allocation of Budget 2005, Fong said she could not find any details pertaining to the allocation of the national service.

"None of the heading or subheading under the defence ministry indicates the money allocated for the national service," she said, describing it as a 'black hole' in Budget 2005.

Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) then stood up and posed several queries on the same issue to Zainal who was in the House.

As the deputy minister responded to Lim's questions, he was constantly bombarded with more posers from the opposition leader who appeared unhappy with Zainal's replies.

Changing stance

At one stage, the deputy minister appeared visibly embarrassed as both Lim and Fong, not satisfied with Zainal's response, continued to heckle him

Zainal initially responded by saying that a total of RM700 millions have been allocated for NS and the allocation was categorised under the administrative budget. Total allocation for the defence ministry under Budget 2005 is RM7.09 billion.

However the deputy minister changed his stance after Lim grilled him for details.

The opposition leader argued that it was important for the ministry to point out where the allocation for the national service will come from.

"The matter before the House now is that we need to approve the defence ministry's allocation which among other things involve a programme costing hundreds of millions. How can we approve it now without the necessary information?" Lim asked.

At this juncture, Zainal said he will provide a detailed written reply to Lim and Fong on their queries because their questions "involved details of the allocation". But this again resulted in protest from the DAP parliamentarians.

"What we want is something very simple. Just tell us under which heading or sub-heading the national service programme's allocation falls under in the defence ministry's allocation. We don't need details," Lim rebutted.

The 'categories'

At this, the deputy minister told the House that RM400 million is allocated for the national service next year and out of that, RM300 million falls under the 'existing policy' category and the remaining is from the 'new policy' category.

However, Lim pointed out there was no 'existing policy' category from the allocation while Fong questioned why it involved 'new policy' allocation since the national service was not a new project.

Deputy Speaker Lim Si Cheng then 'saved' Zainal from further blushes by asking him to proceed with other matters and ended the 20-minute skirmish.

A total of RM500 million was provided for the pioneer batch of the NS programme this year.

The second year of the programme is expected to kick off in the middle of this month.