MP: Let companies compete to supply free tablets
Jeyakumar says government should give vouchers for teachers to buy the machines themselves, not give contract to crony companies.
PETALING JAYA: An MP has called for competition in supplying free tablet computers to the country’s 430,000 teachers.
Sungai Siput MP Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj said the government should give teachers vouchers with which the teachers could buy the tablet computers themselves.
Otherwise, he feared that companies having “a relationship with the government” would be given the contract to supply the tablets to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, which will provide them to teachers.
“It is a good budget, but maybe they are giving them to companies who might be tied to the government. I won’t be surprised if the tablets are of low quality, are not of standards and are a waste of money,” he told FMT in response to the budget speech yesterday.
“The Budget does not touch on things like that. Execution. You can put a lot of money in but how are you going to spend it? Will it be given to cronies and monopolies?” he said.
The prime minister, Najib Razak, announced an allocation of RM340 million for MCMC to provide free tablets to the country’s 430,000 teachers.
Dr Jeyakumar said the government should provide vouchers for the teachers instead, and appoint companies to enable the teachers to buy the tablets themselves. “Just for competition. Whoever gives the best specifications and the best assurance, the teachers will buy what is best for them.”
However National Union of the Teaching Profession president Kamarozaman Abd Razak said opposition politicians should not assume the worst of the government.
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“I don’t think the opposition should say it is a waste, because we are all trying to build a country,” said Kamarozaman. He added that the tablets could be used to improve both teaching and learning methods to a more advanced and sophisticated standard.