KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 24 — DAP’s Lim Kit Siang suggested today the federal government could make substantial savings in its revised Budget 2016 by doing away with the National Civics Bureau (BTN).
The federal opposition lawmaker said that the agency that had been allocated more than RM400 million from 2010 to 2016 as part of efforts to foster patriotism and national unity was not doing its job but carrying out programmes that encouraged racial and religious intolerance instead.
“The problem with BTN is not about rebranding or that it suffered from ‘perceptions’ that it is racist, but whether the BTN had (sic) could be redeemed and totally revamped from its raison d’etre for the past few decades — negative, divisive and anti-national role in indoctrinating and inciting racism, disunity, bigotry and intolerance instead of fostering patriotism, unity, inter-racial and inter-religious understanding and goodwill,” the Gelang Patah MP said in a statement.
Newly appointed BTN director-general Ibrahim Saad had last Thursday said that BTN will be undergoing a rebranding exercise to dispel perceptions that it is racist.
BTN is a three-decade-old agency under the Prime Minister’s Department tasked with promoting patriotism but is often accused of spreading racism.
Despite denials by the government and the agency, sporadic leaks of closed-door events conducted by the BTN or featuring its staff have continued to entrench suspicions that the bureau is a hotbed of racism and “brainwashing”.
The bureau recently experienced an embarrassing episode when internal slides that, among others, claimed racism could be used positively to unite a race, were shared on the Internet after they were accidentally made available for download on its website.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is expected to announce a recalibrated Budget 2016 on Thursday following continuing dip in crude oil prices affecting revenue.
