It may just take six littoral combat ships (LCS) to question the unity government's zero tolerance for corruption.
When the first of the LCS was supposed to be delivered in April 2019 but wasn't, the nation was alerted to brewing problems with the RM9.13 billion contract awarded to Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd (BNS) in 2011.
BNS was supposed to build the LCS with the help of French naval company DCNS in 2015. All six vessels remain undelivered despite an early payment of RM6.08 billion. So do answers. Muar member of parliament Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman tried persuading the Dewan Rakyat to get the members of parliament to debate the issue on Friday, but failed.
He failed to convince Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Johari Abdul, who said a debate was unnecessary at this stage because the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was on it and it was being briefed regularly by the Defence Ministry.
While this is true, a four-year wait for answers is a long time. Besides, it is not clear if the PAC is on the hunt for those responsible for the leakages. A debate in the Dewan Rakyat would have clarified this.
The LCS affair has been described variously as a scandal and a fiasco. It is both. The LCS, all six of them, should have been delivered this year, which is halfway through. Do not get us wrong. We are not questioning the need for the Royal Malaysian Navy to have them. But the people need to know why BNS, which was awarded the contract in 2011, didn't deliver as agreed.
Today, the cost is said to be RM11.2 billion. The contract has turned out to be a bad deal for BNS. It has been worse for the government.
It is not that nothing has been done by the government then and the government now. There have been a forensic audit, a suspension and a resumption of the contract. On Aug 16 last year, this newspaper quoted the PAC findings as revealing that there have been discrepancies and delays in the construction of the LCS since 2017.
What is worse, when the first LCS was launched in 2017, it was less than 44 per cent complete. Although several high-profile people were said to have played a role in the scandal, only one person has been charged with criminal breach of trust.
The LCS scandal is a bank of questions in search of answers. Parliament would have done well to debate this rather than allow the people to speculate. Was the one charged acting alone? Unlikely, given the high value and the twists and turns in the deal. Why weren't the high-profile personalities charged? Why was the first LCS launched when it was only 44 per cent complete? And more.
Corruption is robbing the country of billions of ringgit annually. In a recent finding, EMIR Research, a local think tank, disclosed that Malaysia lost RM4.5 trillion to corruption and leakages over the last 26 years. We could have paid our national debt four times over.
EMIR Research is right. Malaysia is designed to succeed, but some plunderers in leadership positions fail us.
Zero tolerance for corruption, if it is to have any meaning, must catch the plunderers in their greed. Telling it all, inside and outside Parliament, will help.