KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 — Putrajaya paid foreign consultants over RM200 million in last five years despite employing “one of the largest civil services in the world”, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang said today.
Pointing out that Malaysia keeps over 1.4 million civil servants on the payroll, the Gelang Patah MP questioned why the government did not utilise them to prepare the various master plans and national blueprints that it has rolled out in recent years.
“In 2009, Malaysia’s civil servants-to-population ratio was the highest in the Asia-Pacific. The ratio was 4.68 per cent compared to Singapore’s 1.4 per cent, Indonesia’s 1.79 per cent, South Korea’s 1.85 per cent and Thailand’s 2.06 per cent – all of which have less than half our ratio.
“Strangely enough, despite having one of the highest civil servants-to-population ratio in the world, Malaysia is relying increasingly on foreign consultants even to draft national documents and master plans,” Lim said in a statement today.
Putrajaya’s refusal to disclose the identities of the consultancies behind the reports and blueprints also drew Lim’s attention, although it did reveal the total amount spent for such commissions since 2008.
According to a parliamentary reply by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, the government spent a total to RM212 million on external consultants over the past five years, with the highest being in 2012 when it contracted RM84,535,849.77 in such services.
Today, Lim said the practice was rarity in the past and inferred a lack of confidence in Malaysia’s own to “think and plan for the country’s future, whether economic or educational”.
Malaysia’s civil service costs the nation around RM60 billion in wages annually. It the single largest Budget item and accounts for a third of total spending.
