Pua ‘shoots’ down ‘arrogant’ Zahid
By Stephanie Sta Maria, FMT
PETALING JAYA: Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi came under heavy fire from the opposition for “arrogantly” shooting down a bi-partisan parliamentary oversight committee on defence expenditure.
Petaling Jaya Utara DAP MP, Tony Pua, launched the salvo at Ahmad Zahid, saying the latter’s “contemptuous arrogance” proved the ministry’s “complete lack of interest” in transparency and accountability.
Pakatan Rakyat has pushed for the setting up of such a committee in the wake of unexplained multi-billion ringgit defence deals involving the ministry.
But Ahmad Zahid attacked the recommendation yesterday, declaring his confidence in the ability and transparency of the evaluation committee of the three branches of the Malaysian Armed Forces.
He added that as such, scrutiny of defence deals by the opposition was unnecessary.
In a press statement today, Pua retaliated, saying that Ahmad Zahid’s statement explained why Malaysia had received a dismal “transparency” rating.
In the inaugural “Transparency of Defence Budgets Report last month, Transparancy International (TI) gave Malaysia a rating of only 4.5 points out of a maximum of 12.
“Malaysia is ranked alongside Afghanistan, Rwanda, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the report, well below other countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea,” Pua said.
“The results of the research indicate that some 14 percent of the countries under review in this study scored high and these are primarily developed countries with strong democratic systems in place.”
Secret programmes
The director of the International Defence and Security Program for TI in United Kingdom, Mark Pyman, had explained that Malaysia ranked far below other countries because the (defence) budget lacked details and no audits were undertaken of the secret programmes.
Pua also said that Ahmad Zahid’s disdain towards transparency and accountability was clearly evident in his reply to Pua’s question on the ministry’s purchase of 257 armoured personnel carriers.
Pua, who is also DAP national publicity secretary, had demanded an explanation for the gap between the RM7.55 billion paid for the carriers to Deftech Sdn Bhd and the RM1.7 billion that Deftech would later pay to Turkish defence manufacturer, FNSS Defences Systems, for the same items.
Deftech is a subsidiary of DRB-Hicom Bhd based in Pekan, Pahang, a company controlled by Syed Mokhtar Syed Bokhari.
“The minister had acknowledged the above transactions, but had the gall to claim ‘no knowledge’ of the Deftech-FNSS transactions and wasn’t able to explain the difference between the two contracts,” Pua said.
“He (Ahmad Zahid) was also not forthcoming in explaining other sizeable transactions such as the RM6 billion purchase of six second generation patrol vessels as well as the RM2.3 billion acquisition of 12 Eurocopter EC725 helicopters.”
