KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 — The mountain guides who helped rescue climbers stuck after last week’s earthquake there should be given full-time employment for their efforts, a DAP MP said today.

Kota Kinabalu MP Jimmy Wong said that the disaster proved the valour and efficiency of the mountain guides or “malim” as they are known, whom he said surpassed national security agencies.

“I want to urge the Sabah government to make their position a permanent one, with RM 3,000 minimum wage,” he said in the debate during an emergency motion to debate the disaster in the Parliament here.

In his winding up speech, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim stressed that the search and rescue missions were done in an integrated and overall manner, involving seven agencies, including an expert mountain guide.

When asked whether the federal government would consider discussing Wong’s proposal to the Sabah state government, Shahidan said that it will be looked into.

The death toll from the earthquake that hit Sabah on Friday is now at 16, with two more still unaccounted for. Many of the deceased were believed to have died while on a via ferrata climbing route which was beyond rescuer’s reach.

Two mountain guides, Robbi Sapinggi and Joseph Solugin, along with Mountain Torq trainers Valerian Joannes and Ricky Masirin, perished from injuries sustained during the quake.