Wednesday 9 March 2011

Deal signed for 257 new Armored Personnel Carriers supplied by Turkey for Malaysia's Army

Updated:
Mindef MUST come clean on this APC purchase, its illogical to pay RM1.9 billion for 257 new APCs while the remainder RM5.6 Billion is for what? maintenance and spares?


Read:
Something That Does Not Meet The Eye


Defence Ministry on Shopping Spree


Original Post:
Read a interesting article of another multi-billion dollar purchase by Mindef for 257 Armored Personal Carriers(APCs) all 257 no. in Rocky's Bru here: Arms contract and arm-chair critics

While I do not consider myself an arm chair critic or even a wannabee arms expert, I believe any reasons by the military to purchase assets for the defense of our country as important and should not be questioned, the cost in procuring the asset should however be subject to scrutiny as we want our soldiers to get the best maximum value for the money paid by the Government to purchase the military assets. I find the purchase sum of RM7.5 Billion to sound very expensive and if you work out average cost/APC = RM 29.2million/APC.


So it got me surfing the net like what a normal armchair critic would do and found this news report:


Turkish, Malaysian companies sign $600 mln defense industry deal

Published: 2/22/2011

Turkish defense industry company FNSS signed Tuesday a $600 million deal with Malaysia’s DEFTECH to sell armoured combat vehicles to Malaysian military.

Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul and his Malaysian counterpart Amhad Zahid Hamidi witnessed the signing of agreement in Ankara.

Under the $600 million deal for the sale of 257 armoured combat vehicles, the Pars 8x8, Turkish company FNSS will design, develop and produce vehicles and provide logistics support.

The deal is important for Turkish defense industry as it is the largest amount in defense industry exports of the country at one time.

The 8x8 Pars armoured vehicle will be redesigned by Turkish and Malaysian engineers. Vehicles will be produced locally in Malaysia.

Under an earlier agreement between FNSS and DEFTECH, FNSS sold 211 armoured personnel carriers to equip the Malaysian military.

Moreover, Malaysian companies signed several defense industry agreements with other Turkish companies MIKES and TUSAS and GATES.

Read in full here. Yes friends at USD600 million this deal with Malaysia is considered as the largest amount of export at any one time by the Turkish Defence Industry.

Very well and good for Malaysia and Turkey but Read the report about the RM7.5 Billion Project for DRB-Hicom for the 257 APCs.

The question to Mindef is which figure is true?Is it RM7.5Billion(USD2.5 Billion) OR USD600 million(RM1.9 Billion) for the design,development and production of the 257 APCs. I am not a defense expert but I am all for the modernization of our defense assets, however a clarification is necessary to dispel doubts and please do not brush us off by asking concerned Malaysians like myself and many more to go back to the kindergarten.


2 comments:

satD said...

excellent brokerage fees!

257 seems like a favourite number for the procurement officer bro!

eddy said...

Bro SatD, I have always this view that democracy in Malaysia cannot be 2/3rd majority for BN, we must have a strong and boisterous Opposition so that the Government of the day do not run wild.

This APC purchase needed to be rethought, goodness its just a letter of intent but the Government especially Zahid hamidi has a lot of explaining to do and he cannot just say that defense spending is national interest and cannot be questioned.

The point of the matter is not why it is needed but why does this APC cost so much more than a Main Battle Tank.That is illogical.

We want best value for our soldiers to protect them in battle not fat commissions paid to middleman.

Tq.