KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Poor choice of career paths after retiring from military service is not the only factor that causes non-Bumiputeras to shy away from joining the Malaysian Armed Forces, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said today.

In a press conference, the minister known as Tok Mat said that military service is also seen as less appealing due to other career paths that provide better financial compensation.

"It’s not just because of retirement plans but rather, for the non-Bumiputeras, there are other careers such as being an entrepreneur which gives a lot of returns and better compensations.

"So it’s not just due to one factor such as the retirement plan for military retirees,” he told the press at the ministry here.

Mohamad also said that the government has laid out plans for the Armed Forces to appeal to the non-Bumiputeras, such as cooperation with universities and various other agencies.

Apart from that, he also said that the ministry is working with the relevant stakeholders to train military retirees and reintegrate them into the labour force through job-matching programmes.

"There’re many of our officers that have been trained during their transitional period, where they can choose their own preference on which training programme they want to follow. Just name it, we have everything,” he added.

The minister was responding to Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) Ketereh MP Datuk Khlir Mohd Nor, a former major-general in the military, who said that an unclear career trajectory post-military service is one of the main reasons why non-Bumiputeras are uninterested to serve in the country’s military defence.

Khlir then urged the government to offer a better scheme for veterans who are desperate to have a better post-military service life.

At the moment, military personnel have options to retire after 12, 15 or 18 years of service. They would mostly be between 39 and 45 years old then.

Previously, Mohamad told Parliament that less than 3 per cent of non-Bumiputeras have joined the military because of a lack of interest in the security personnel’s scope of work.