The government will investigate claims of negligence at the National Service (NS) camp at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang after a trainee was reported missing.

Not politics

In a related matter, Najib said the government would set up a parliamentary select committee comprising Barisan Nasional and opposition members of parliament to discuss issues on national unity.

He said Najib among the topics to be discussed by the committee, to be chaired by the BN, were the implementation of the National Service and other unity programmes.

"With the select committee, it means that national unity is the responsibility of everyone," he said.

"They (the select committee) are free to discuss everything and we are willing to hear all views and specific proposals," he said

Najib added the establishment of the committee also showed the BN government's willingness to work with the opposition for the good of the country.

"We had, for instance in the formulation of the National Development Policy, invited opposition party members but they did not attend. When we wanted to amend the new Education Act we also invited the opposition parties but again they did not attend.

"Now they are willing to cooperate, so we have no objections and we think it's very appropriate because this matter does not involve politics but concerns all Malaysians so it's fitting that we discuss it in the select committee," he said.

Urine tests

However, he said, this did not mean that the BN government would discuss all issues by way of select committees.

"For a committee like this we only discuss certain matters that involve national interest," he said, adding that the BN and the opposition had previously participated in a select committee on the Criminal Procedure Code.

Asked about the Kelantan PAS government's offer to appoint Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mustapa Mohamed ( photo )as alternate chairman of the Kelantan Economic Action Council, Najib said it was up to Umno whether or not to accept the offer.

"So far we have not accepted their offer. We will act as the opposition because the people of Kelantan have made their choice and we are not in power in Kelantan," he said.

Meanwhile, Defence Ministry Deputy Secretary-General Sirajudin Salleh said random urine test might be carried out in future in a move to curb drug abuse among trainees.

"We can't do it at present because there are just too many trainees," he told reporters.

New batch

Last week, five trainees at the NS camp at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) were produced in the Alor Star Magistrate's Court for having 15gm of ganja.

On April 29, a girl trainee was detained at the NS camp at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) for having two tubes of syabu weighing 0.2gm.

Meanwhile, the second group of 19,357 trainees under the first series of the programme will start their character-building module at 22 camps from Monday and will end on June 5.

The third group of 19,970 will start their community service module during the same period