KUALA LUMPUR, 13 Nov: The Member of Parliament for Kelana Jaya, Wong Chen, urged the Federal Government to disclose details regarding expenditure that has been wasted on private consulting firms.

He said that the Federal Government has spent over RM7.2 billion on private consulting firms in the past five years.

He said that the amount could be broken down to RM125 per month or RM4 million a day, and the payments have been found to increase from year 2099 till last October.

“The amount is used from government revenue, and a part of it was generated from the people’s yearly income tax, and this is very irresponsible,” he said in a press conference here at the Parliament lobby today.

He also questioned the government’s action of not stating the purpose, benefits and the types of companies who have been awarded contracts.

He said that reliance on private consulting firms reflect the low-confidence on public service.

“The trend of expenses for consulting services is worrisome. This is a legitimate concern since private consultants charge fees that are not fixed.

“How do we know that the government hired the firms at reasonable rates; and more transparency is needed on this issue,” he said.

In this regard, he urged all ministries to release the full amount of expenses and consulting firms involved.

He said that Pakatan Rakyat (PR) will coordinate with all Member of Parliament to ask the ministries to release all expenses associated with the private consulting firms in a question and answer session, if the government refuses to disclose them.

“We also want the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee to focus on expenses for these services in the next report,” he said.

According to statistics, expanses recorded a total of RM1.2 billion in 2009, RM1.6 billion in 2010, RM1.7 billion in 2011, RM1.8 billion in 2012, and over RM720 million as of last October.