Zahid eyes new air force support vehicles for next year
Zahid urged the opposition to stop questioning the ministrys need to spend on new assets. File pic
The majority of AGSV are old and need to be replaced. The Auditor-Generals Report clearly shows the critical need for the new assets, the defence minister was quoted by Bernama Online today.
I think we will replace the vehicles next year using existing allocations as we have to adhere to certain ceilings in our budget, the report quoted him further.
Zahid then urged the federal opposition not to question his ministrys need to spend on new assets during times of peace, saying the Auditor-Generals report should open their eyes to reality.
The Defence Ministrys expenditure has come under repeated scrutiny by Pakatan Rakyat (PR), which has continually sought explanations for the multi-billion defence deals involving the ministry.
The latest was a query as to why the ministry paid RM7.6 billion for armoured personnel carriers (APC) procured by DRB-Hicom Bhd for only US$559 million (RM1.7 billion).
A RM6 billion contract for six offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) drew similar attention at the start of the year.
An embarrassing failure by one of the countrys billion-ringgit Scorpene submarines to submerge last year attracted further reservations over the prudence of the countrys defence spending.
While the government maintains that such contracts must be classified as a matter of national security, PR has insisted that Malaysians have a right to know how public funds were being spent given the ministrys history of cost overruns.
Anti-graft watchdog Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) has also urged the government to stop to using national sec! urity as an excuse for the secrecy that ends up hiding graft involving defence contracts, and consider appointing independent monitors for such deals.
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