SHAH ALAM: As reported yesterday, the Defence Ministry publicly announced the signing of 54 contracts – LOAs, contracts and LOIs worth RM4.6 billion at the third of DSA 2022.

One of the Letter of Acceptance (LOA) announced yesterday was for DRB-Hicom Defence Techonologies Sdn Bhd (Deftech) for the supply and delivery of 150 Malaysian Army three-tonne General Services (GS) trucks with the contract price of RM59.7 million.

The announcement did not identify the type of truck offered by Deftech but the truck was displayed at the company’s booth at DSA 2022. One will not be wrong to assume that it will be the Deftech Handalan II (an Isuzu truck) which had been the standard three-tonne GS cargo truck for the last two decades.

This time around its not the Handalan but instead an Iveco three-tonne truck. This will be the fifth Iveco truck to enter service with the Malaysian army – after the prime mover, five-tonne truck, the Iveco Daily MRCS and likely another Daily as a gun tower.

It interesting to note that the tender for the three-tonne GS cargo truck was published in June 2021 and closed a month later. Seven companies entered the tender for the truck with Deftech bid coming in at the second highest. The Eperolehan website has yet to state that Deftech has been awarded the LOA though.

Deftech has not designated a name for the Iveco truck. It is likely to be called the Iveco by its end users though.

— Malaysian Defence

If you like this post, buy me an espresso. Paypal Payment