These are very different issues that need to be tackled differently . As for the rehabilitation of young addicts , the NGOs (supported by the state ) are doing their best ; for a compulsory NYS , it has achieved its goals mainly for nations utilizing compulsory service for military or emergency response.
Outside of direct defence and social cohesion and building national identity , implementing broad compulsory service for 16–25-year-olds has faced major challenges and frictions and had to be abandoned over time.
Besides the fact that training and housing massive young cohorts will be quite demanding on the budget, mandatory programs frequently face opposition over infringements on personal liberty. For example, early iterations of France's attempt at a mandatory civic youth service met with criticism, prompting the government to lean heavily into voluntary service models.
At the level of reskilling we already have the National Training and Reskilling Scheme (NTRS) initiated to curb skills mismatches and unemployment; the NTRS is a major government thrust that targets unemployed individuals looking to transition into high-demand sectors like ICT/BPO, healthcare, finance, and green energy.
Corporate Participation: Companies partner with this NTRS - HRDC platform to train and recruit young school leavers and jobseekers . Trainees receive a monthly government-sponsored stipend while learning.
Once again, the ex-FS is parroting his fixation with austerity . Who's talking about austerity ? We are talking about fiscal consolidation (without questioning our low tax liberal economy model) which they had tried and failed over the years under the tandem Mansoor-Sithanen.
Given their unconvincing assumptions of having exhausted all possibilities of boosting revenue, instead of reducing the proportion of current spending as against capital spending, they did the opposite, and put the burden of fiscal adjustment on capital expenditures, such that we ended with dismal capital spending over a decade , which is impacting on our growth rate now. 𝑰𝒍 𝒂 𝒍𝒆 𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝒅𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒕é !
The country is executing a national Digital Transformation Blueprint 2025–2029 to position itself as a trusted AI innovation hub for Small Island Developing States, how to achieve that if we do not have the fiscal space to invest heavily on the basic infrastructure , namely human capital and energy.
For that we need higher capital investment and structural reforms ; a proper fiscal consolidation not à la Mansoor-Sithanen, especially their cosmetic reforms which were limited to "Doing Business" indicators..
𝑲𝒊 𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒛𝒐𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒖é 𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒌 𝒔𝒂 𝒃𝒂𝒏 𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒐𝒔𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒔 𝒍𝒂 , 𝒆𝒔𝒌𝒊 𝒛𝒐𝒕 𝒑𝒂 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒏 𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒔é 𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒂𝒔!
