Financial constraints stand in the way of the government expanding the FLYsiswa initiative to cover students from private higher education institutions, transport minister Loke Siew Fook said today.
He cited the large number of private college and university students who would need to be covered, saying it would be too costly to include them all.
“It is not that we do not want to (expand the initiative to them), but we face financial hurdles (in doing so).
“We spend RM400 per person, and covering 100,000 people has already cost us RM40 million,” Loke said in the Dewan Rakyat.
The transport minister also said the government already had several initiatives aimed at helping those in need.
“However, we will explore ways to extend the programme to needy students at private higher education institutions. This was something we considered when we introduced the FLYsiswa initiative,” he added.
Loke was responding to Shaharizukirnain Abd Kadir (PN-Setiu), who asked whether the ministry planned to expand the subsidy initiative to private college students as well as civil servants who travel back and forth from the peninsula to Sabah and Sarawak.
FLYsiswa subsidises flight tickets for students from public universities, polytechnics, community colleges, matriculation centres, and teacher training institutes for domestic routes between Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak, and Labuan.
Separately, Loke said his ministry welcomed the proposal by Vivian Wong (PH-Sandakan) that airlines be mandated to disclose to customers the total cost of flight subsidies from which they had benefited.
“We will discuss with airlines to seek the best mechanism to inform passengers about the amount of airfare subsidy they have benefited from,” he said.
