Dr Mahathir Mohamad has questioned why Malaysian Chinese were not hired to work on the East Coast Rail Link, if language was an issue.

"We have a lot of Chinese in Malaysia and they can speak Mandarin. If you don't hire them as labourers, at least (take them) as engineers or so on.

"Don't give that excuse, that because they don't understand the language, so they bring in workers from China," Mahathir said at a forum in Petaling Jaya this evening...