KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Paralympic Council (MPM) hopes the government will consider allocating RM10 million in Budget 2025 to be directly disbursed to 25 national para sports associations for their grassroots programmes.
MPM president Datuk Seri Megat D Shahriman Zaharudin said this funding would provide opportunities for MPM and national para sports associations to nurture talents outside the National Sports Council (NSC) programmes.
He said NSC could then focus on developing high-performance athletes through established programmes, including those at Bukit Jalil and the Paralympic Sports Excellence Centre in Kampung Pandan here.
“We aim to create a pipeline of para athletes for the next 20 years and hope the government, particularly Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, can provide direct funding to MPM, thereby elevating our athletes to be on par with able-bodied athletes.
“If we want to move forward, there are many more achievements to be made, not just in sports but also in areas such as classification, technical officials and sports medicine for athletes with disabilities,” he told Bernama.
He assured that they would adhere to all procedures, ensuring good governance in the distribution of funds to relevant parties and remaining open to investigations by authorities in the event of any misconduct related to the allocation of funds.
Budget 2025 will be presented by Anwar, who is Finance Minister, in the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 18.
