KUALA LUMPUR: AS part of the broad, sweeping changes in the Defence Ministry, big-ticket defence procurement programmes will no longer be vendor-driven.
Instead, weapons systems acquisitions and similar programmes will be motivated purely by the needs of the three services that make up the Malaysian Armed Forces, and only after a careful and thorough demonstration/evaluation (DEM/EVAL) phase.
Deputy Defence Minister Liew Chin Tong, in an exclusive interview with the New Straits Times, said this was necessary to ensure that war fighters are provided with the right tools to execute their mission.
“If you look back, under the previous government, quite a number of these big-ticket defence projects were vendor-driven, often against the end-user’s advice, and sometimes, against our strategic interests.
“For instance, camps were built for votes, and land swaps — taking military camps in urban centres and moving them to far-flung places — were a big thing.
“Among the battlespace that our forces may be engaged in in the future, apart from the maritime domain, are the urban centres.
“We have to be prepared to conduct combat operations in an urban environment.
“But if you take away military camps from the urban centres and put them in far-flung places, your ability to respond to any given scenario quickly and effectively, will be degraded... your reaction time will be compromised.
“You also run the risk of having your forces being interdicted by the enemy while in-transit to the combat zone. So it doesn’t make sense, tactically and strategically.
“One of the first things Mohamad Sabu did when he was sworn in as defence minister, was to throw his support behind the setting up of the Governance, Procurement and Finance Investigating Committee (GPFIC) at the first cabinet meeting he attended on May 30, 2018.”
The committee, headed by Tan Sri Ambrin Buang, started by looking into these land swaps and other questionable deals in the ministry, “to bring out all the skeletons in the closet in a systematic manner”.
The findings contained in the 16-chapter, 500-page report revealed that the losses incurred through these deals — involving 1,182.89ha of land belonging to the ministry — were in excess of RM500 million.
One of the reasons for the losses was that the method used to determine the value of the replacement land was “inconsistent”.
Four land replacements were found to be valued at less than the estimates provided by the Valuation and Property Service Department, which resulted in a loss of RM166.81 million.
The committee also found that the planning for the land swap projects was weak.
Only two of the 16 projects were in the Defence Ministry’s Development Plan.
The report added that 10 of the 16 projects were initiated after receiving unsolicited proposals from the private sector.
The private sector identified the replacement land, and subsequently, proposed the development projects for consideration by the ministry.
Several projects were implemented without taking into account the views and input from key agencies, such as the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the Finance Ministry. Indirectly, this adversely impacted the outcomes of those initiatives.
“I think the Defence White Paper (DWP) and the GPFIC report are the two cornerstones of what Mohamad has brought to the ministry.
“Once you have the revelations from the GPFIC, you have no choice but to deal with the issues and past legacies, which will then allow you to, hopefully, chart the future, through the DWP,” said Liew.
Since these revelations, the GPFIC probe of the ministry has shifted its focus to other areas, such as the maintenance and purchase of military assets.
“We are moving to other areas like asset purchase, maintenance and others… we will keep the ministry informed on those,” Ambrin was quoted as saying.
On Sept 4, it was reported that the government was considering scrapping two defence contracts.
One was for the acquisition of six MD530G light scout attack helicopters and the other, for the supply of 29 MH109A5 self-propelled howitzers (SPHs) for the army’s mechanised/armoured units.
The first batch of the light attack helicopters and SPHs was supposed to have been delivered around this time, this year.
However, in May, the MD530G deal seemed to be in doubt when local media reported that the helicopters had not been delivered, despite the contract being signed in 2015.
In June, a report was lodged with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
Analysts believe that if these deals are deep-sixed, it could be the result of the review ordered by the government in an effort to rationalise defence spending against the actual needs of the armed forces.
“This is why Mohamad has agreed to, and is pushing for the Defence White Paper… to create that literature where we can debate and improve on what sort of an armed forces we should have.
“Without that document, without that general understanding among MPs (members of parliament), corporate leaders, opinion leaders… among everyone, we will be talking on different channels.
“It is even more imperative now, in this current landscape of an ever-shrinking defence budget,” said Liew.
Under the 2019 Budget, the Defence and Home ministries were allocated RM30.9 billion from a total of RM314.5 billion. It was somewhat of an even split, with the Defence Ministry getting RM15.3 billion. However, this represented a year-on-year decline of 10 per cent.
Of the RM15.3 billion, RM13 billion was earmarked as Operating Expenditure (OE). The upshot was, this marked an increase of about RM700 million compared with 2018’s figure of RM12.2 billion. Development Expenditure (DE) also saw a marginal uptick from RM3.29 billion in 2018 to RM3.65 billion this year.
The overall reduction in defence spending means that defence expenditure has declined to its lowest level as a share of the government budget since the 1980s.
It also represents the latest in a series of military spending cuts in the country, as successive governments pursued a strategy of fiscal consolidation to rein in the country’s budget deficit, and reducing sovereign debts.
Liew added that from 2014 onwards, not only did the ministry have to contend with an ever-shrinking defence budget, it also had to deal with the slump in oil prices, which had nosedived by 30 per cent. This was further exacerbated by leakages inherited from the previous administration.
“We are dealing with that… the leakages and other legacy issues. Unfortunately, to undo all this is quite tough… it takes time.”
In formulating and drafting the DWP, the ministry took a leaf from other nations, especially those with limited resources and funding, to examine the novel solutions and best practices they had come up with to plug gaps and overcome any shortfall in their total defence needs.
This includes the use of force-multipliers, investing in a modern and robust integrated battlespace management system, smart nodes and a network-centric, C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) structure, the use of artificial intelligence, datalink and encrypted “burst” transmitters, autonomous combat systems and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), and developing resilient, survivable, federated networks and information ecosystems, for the tactical, right up to the strategic planning level.
“The DWP team consists of members from the armed forces, civilian analysts in the ministry and strategic thinkers from universities and academia. It consulted with many countries and listened to their experiences.
“Some of them were kind enough to send those who had worked on their respective white papers to come and talk to us. But before we do anything, we first have to understand and clearly define the role of the armed forces.
“Its primary role — its day job — is to train for war, in order to maintain peace. Its secondary role is to aid and assist the civilian authorities in the event of a crisis or a disaster.
“Without first defining a clear strategic role or objective for the armed forces, it will be very difficult for us to navigate this domain.
“The government and societal leaders must arrive at some sort of consensus on what we need the armed forces for, but to dispute the need for having such a deterrent, and to not make any attempt to understand that the armed forces has a day job, that, I think, is a societal problem that we have to overcome.
“I think we have to be clear of our expectations. The Defence White Paper is not to answer all the questions. Its purpose is to ask all the relevant questions for the next decade.
“If we can do that, and frame it properly, provide for resources — particularly funding — and build the consensus for everyone, then I think that will be good.”