KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 — The Defence Ministry today revealed that it had spent a total of RM6.7 billion (1.34 billion euros) on the purchase of two Scorpene submarines.
In a written reply to PKR MP Chua Tian Chang, the ministry stated that the acquisition was completed last year, during the 2009 LIMA exhibition.
The reply listed down the cost of the two submarines as well as the price of buying 40 SM-39 Block 2 torpedoes from France and 30 Black Shark torpedoes from Italy.
According to the ministry, the purchase of two Scorpene submarines cost 1.084 billion euros, while the cost of the submarine “support and test” equipment amounted to 37.5 million euros.
The total cost of the torpedoes amounted to 219.265 million euros.
“If you add all this up, the total cost is RM6.7 billion. But this does not include maintenance fees for the submarines,” said Chua.
The Batu MP claimed that DCN, the French company which supplied the submarines to the ministry, had quoted additional costs of RM600 million for the maintenance of the submarines for a six-year period.
“This figure was quoted by DCN prior to its joint venture with Boustead Holdings, a Malaysian company.
“After the venture, Boustead told the Defence Ministry that RM270 million would be needed for maintenance of the submarines each year. The RM600 million is the top ceiling cost for all six years,” said Chua.
The PKR man explained that if the RM600 million were to be added to the RM6.7 billion, the total cost would be RM7.3 billion.
“While we are facing financial problems, with subsidies here and there, the government is having two white elephants which keep expanding in cost. We are not sure whether this will be the end of the payments, or will there be more,” said Chua.
The politician, popularly known as Tian Chua, alleged that DCN had a history of shady business deals, citing newspaper reports of corruption links to Pakistan as well as Taiwan.
“I also heard that the prosecutor in France, where they are investigating DCN, has also decided to combine Pakistan’s case together with Malaysia. Malaysia’s case is the third incident of corruption with regards to the purchase of weapons from DCN,” said Chua, who did not elaborate on what he meant by allegations of corruption.
