Arms procurement: How UMNO leaders routinely receive 30 per cent “commission” ...

The continued revelations of corruption within the Defence Mininstry have caused much consternation amongst the public. Even WikiLeaks has reported a diplomatic cable between the US Embassy in Malaysia and the United States that alleges corruption in Malaysia’s defense procurement in which Umno politicians, agents, civil servants and military officials routinely receive 30 per cent “commission” on deals.

The US embassy also noted that many government tenders did not follow procurement rules. Instead, there were shadowy agreements without any tendering process, relying on “money politics” where awards were granted with a cut of funds circulating back to the politician or Umno through different channels.

The latest is Sapura

The opposition has pointed fingers at Prime Minister Najib Razak who was the defense minister from 1991 to 1995 and 2000 to 2008. In particular, they have pointed to a RM570 million 'commission' - possibly the single largest for one deal - which was allegedly paid to a local consulting company Perimekar, controlled by his close friend Razak Baginda.

In recent months, Pakatan Rakyat has also questioned the inflated costs of several new arms deals proposed by current Defence Minister Zahid Hamidi, which includes the purchase of 30 Eurofighter Typhoon jets and 6 naval patrol boats.

And just days ago, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's PKR had expressed concern at another RM2 billion directly-negotiated government procurement contract, on the basis that it can potentially waste millions of ringgit more of taxpayers' money.

The project is called the 'Network Centric Operations' (NCO) for the Armed Forces negotiated between the Defence ministry and Sapura Secured Technologies Sdn Bhd.

"How can the minister of Defence allow such weaknesses in governance to take place before his very eyes?" PKR lawmakers Tian Chua and Nurul Izzah asked in their joint statement.

Najib the biggest benefactor of Malaysia's arms spending

The NCO project is so haphazard it has also irked some of the military personnel themselves, who question the wisdom of the decision to go ahead with the project. But sad to say, the Sapura deal is just another in a long line of highly questionable multi-billion ringgit deals entered into by the BN federal government.

Concern over the wastage of public funds has troubled the country for decades, in fact since the rule of 4th prime minister Mahathir Mohamad who was obsessed by over-sized infrastructure projects. But defence procurements have been the realm of Najib, who made the really big bucks if the speculation is true that his proxies had collected inordinate kickbacks througout most of the past decade.

The controversial deals linked to Najib include the 2 Scorpene and one Agosta submarines purchase in 2002 worth RM7billion, 18 Sukhoi jetfighters in 2003 worth RM3.5billion, the 12 Eurocopters EC275 helicopters in 2008 worth RM2.3billion, the ongoing RM52billion MRT system for the Klang Valley and a multi-billion ringgit slush fund within the 1MDB project.

So far, there has only been evidence of lip service paid to open tender systems, but it is clear the preferred choice is through direct negotiation. And this is a major cause for concern. Continue reading here.

source:malaysia chronicle

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