Mahathir: RM20mil consultancy job? I can do it

After the government forked out RM20 million in consultancy fees for the National Education Blueprint, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad sarcastically said that he, too, can do it.

“I can also be a local expert, but no one wants to give me (the consultancy job),” he told a press conference in Subang Jaya this evening.

He was responding to a query on the government spending hefty sums of money on McKinsey & Co for consultancy services.

The payment have come under heavy criticism from the opposition as they pointed out that the consultancy firm is not specialised in education matters.

Furthermore, the engaging of a foreign agency also appear to have sidelined local technocrats who have under the tenure of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, been brought on in large numbers under the banner Pemandu.

Mahathir also weighed in on the country’s poor university rankings, saying that it may have been a result of hasty expansion of tertiary education.

“The expansion of education institutions has been so fast that it is difficult to get educators, professor and lecturers.

“In the haste, we don’t have enough educators and some may not be up to standard,” he said.

The former premier was at Sunway University today to present scholarships  by the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation to deserving students.