The National Civics Bureau BTN and National Service programmes are to be abolished, announced Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman.
He said that his ministry will draft a replacement programme that will be in line with the Federal Constitution and Rukun Negara.
He said civil servants attached to both government initiatives would be absorbed into his ministry.
“They will undergo a consolidation effort, where we will decide how best to manage all the existing assets,” he said.
Syed Saddiq told a press conference at the Parliament media room that the decision to abolish both the agency and the programme was made following last week’s Cabinet meeting.
He said the decision was made to reduce expenditure and allow more focus on removing political appointees.
“We are looking to restructure some areas and reduce costs as we found that 50% of the budget allocated was used for the rental of campsites and transportation.
“These processes were not done through open tender,” he added.
“A lot of these dealings were made way above market prices, hence the need to restructure both entities.”
The Pakatan Harapan government has been under pressure to terminate the BTN due to prevailing suspicions that the agency was effectively a propaganda arm set up by the previous Barisan Nasional administration.
Last week, Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu told Parliament that the programme had trained 885,956 Malaysians in 14 years.
Of the total trainees, 356,411 had joined the National Service Volunteer Brigade.
Syed Saddiq revealed that 1Malaysia for Youth (1M4U), another initiative by the former administration, would also undergo a major revamp.
“We want to revive the initial function of 1M4U, which was to promote volunteerism among the youth.
“We want to ensure that it will no longer be influenced by political interference,” he said, adding that they would be engaging with stakeholders who were actively involved in volunteer work.