PETALING JAYA, Feb 7: The government has been taken to task for agreeing to spend some RM6 billion for six second-generation patrol vessels for the Royal Malaysian Navy.
DAP Petaling Jaya Utara member of parliament Tony Pua (pic) urged the government to explain its decision on spending such huge sum for patrol vessels, while subsidies for the people were being removed due to its claims of insufficient funds.
“Is there a need for the government to invest in those ships now when our economy has yet to recover fully and when the government keeps telling the people it has not enough funds and when subsidies to the people are reduced,” asked Pua as quoted by online news portal Selangorkini.
Earlier, Defence minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said one-third or RM2 billion of the allocation would be used to benefit 632 vendor companies which are strategic partners of Boustead Naval Shipyard, saying the move would boost the economy.
Pua questioned the transparency in awarding the contract to Boustead Naval Shipyard, saying the company has a "chronic reputation of corruption" to the extent that the government was forced to fork out extra money to bail it out.
'Company is merger from corrupt past'
According to Pua, a similar contract worth RM5.4 billion was awarded in 1998 to Penang Shipyard and Construction Industries (PSCI) to build six patrol vessels for Royal Malaysian Navy.
However, PSCI failed to deliver the ships due to corruption and had asked for the government to absorb extra costs, and to restructure its management to merge with Boustead Holding, now renamed to Boustead Naval Shipyard.
“Shouldn’t the government be more careful when awarding contracts so that such contracts should also be offered to those who are most capable of delivering?" asked Pua, adding that people should be given more information about the contracts to judge whether the decision was wise.
Pua also urged to provide specific details on the RM1 billion boat.
“The price of RM1 billion for a ship may be reasonable, and may be too expensive. This all depends on whether these ships are armoured or have some advanced missiles or different radars, because based on the information that I have, the price of these ships are between RM100 million to RM1 billion,” he said.
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