SEREMBAN: The Civil Defence, which has emerged as one of the country's main emergency and rescue agencies, needs to recruit another 200,000 volunteers in the next three years to better serve the community. The department, which was set up as a support body for other rescue agencies, currently has 390,000 volunteers of whom, only 190,000 are active.
Deputy Home Minister Datuk Abu Seman Yusop said based on international standards, 2% of the country's population should comprise of volunteers who had been trained to carry out different types of rescue. “Although the Civil Defence has done very well so far, we will be able to do more if we had more volunteers,” he said after the handing over of 71 vehicles to the department and conferment of ranks to its personnel here yesterday.
He said 12,000 of the 190,000 trained volunteers were able to respond to an emergency within three hours. Apart from free uniforms and medical service, rank and file volunteers are paid RM4 per hour while officers are given RM5.80. Abu Seman said the Civil Defence had also been included in the Malaysian Emergency Response System 999 (MERS 999) emergency line and was one of the top five emergency and rescue agencies apart from the police, Fire and Rescue, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and the Health Ministry.
Wednesday January 11, 2012
By SARBAN SINGH newsdesk@thestar.com.my
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