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• Another corporate man in the defense department. Will compromise for any misappropriation of funds as long it gets the job done. Honestly that’s not the policy i was expecting.

  • As usual most thefts ended up with us having nothing or near nothing as shown by the LCS and MGPV fiascos

• Qamarul - "Another corporate man in the defense department"

  It can be a career civil servant; ex military chap; a former corporate figure or Benny Hill; doesn't matter as defence isn't a priority; we have a flawed policy; we don't adequately scrutinise authority when it comes to defence issues and serving the interests of the armed services and taxpayer isn't the main aim.

  Qamarul - "Honestly that’s not the policy i was expecting"

  What were you really expecting? That our way of doing things things would undergo a fundamental revamp? Different management but same policy.

• Fans of biggest (literal) bang for the bucks may be disappointed but a corporate man is probably what we needed in Kementah.

  MY at this point are unlikely to sway away from the very European concepts of defense spending as an economics engine and so far most menhan had failed to make defense spending as an agent for economics engine parts.

  Since tok mat talk about sovereign bond rating then yes a defense posture which is all over the place, buy things in small numbers without any commonalities from every tom,dick & harry out there, calling your bully DaGe, claiming neutrality are not going to inspire much investors confidence.

• zaft - '' a corporate man is probably what we needed in Kementah.''

  Makes no difference because he doesn't formulate or drive policy; nor do we have a holistic apolitical defence policy based on a realistic assessment of our needs and one which is intended to benefit the end user and taxpayer.

  zaft - ''MY at this point are unlikely to sway away from the very European concepts of defense spending''

  No shit.... As I said : different management; same policy. Major defence buys [despite whatever statements or cosmetics] will continue to have the primary aim of benefiting the local industry and benefiting the country in various non military ways.

• "Makes no difference because he doesn’t formulate or drive policy"
  No, he don't but according to your yardstick, he only needs to make the right noises to make a difference. No?

  Marhalim, The Star reported that Tok Mat has officially committed to continue on LCS in objection to his "boss" Anwar's earlier preference to scrap LCS. Do you think this is a sign of something deeper going on?

  • He is just saying what was the Defence Ministry previous decisions. DSAI has also said they will be looking not only into projects that have been green lighted or not contracted but also approved project. I hazard to guess that the LCS has not been reviewed yet by the new administration

• Frack it, if they need to put LCS on hold again for yet another round of "review" as if the 22months under previous PH weren't long enough to do such things. And also the PAC Report has detailed all there is to reveal and its been out for many months now, so unless their MPs and all politicians under the sun hadn't gone thru that report (cuz it didn't matter as much as trying to stick a related corruption allegation onto Zahid back then), then the point seems moot to review yet again.

  I dunno, maybe it is their means of trying to drag out this issue either for political mileage and/or to make it unfeasible to restart again. By then, even the equipment stored would have to be refurbished before they can be used. All this time while PH-BN-PN play football with this project, TLDM are desperate for new hulls and trying to keep ageing ones running.

• I find it funny that people blame PH for LCS delay. Has anyone checked the progress of the ships in 2018 when PH took over? The first ship was supposed to be delivered in 2019 but the design hasn't even been finalised in 2018. I'm OK with criticisms like the M109, the toothless white paper, the delays with the Kuwait hornets, and any number of things. But to say PH is responsible for LCS problem? I think that's irresponsible given the malfeasance that was going on in the project. Lastly, no one knows how much LCS 1 and 2 will cost. RM9b spent and the design still not finalised. No one knows when the ship will be completed - is it 2025, 2026, 2027? Is the LCS the only shipbuilding priority of RMN that the RMN should spent all its shipbuilding funds for the next 2 RMK?

• Is it? Who stopped further LCS work? PH. Who stopped funding LCS progress? PH. Who did not do anything except to politicise it while no work being done? PH. So its still not PH fault? Laughable.
  Is there malfeasance? Yes. But they could have continue build progress while investigations are taking place. One does not need to sacrifice the other. If England operated with such thinking, the QE carriers would still be in the docks by now. RM 9Bil spent? Again I question your math skills. The total project budget is RM 9Bil with 6bil used, of which RM 200mil was used just to upgrade BNS Lumut facility to build those ships and has no bearing with the ships themselves.

• ''No, he don’t but according to your yardstick, he only needs to make the right noises to make a difference. No?''

  According to my ''yardstick'' [if that's the right word] as a member of the cabinet he will merely carry out what has been approved by the cabinet; per existing policy; as well as how focused the government is towards defence in general. He has some level of say and influence but he does not drive or formulate policy.

• The real number for LCS is RM6b already disbursed in 2018 but RM9b already billed. In other words, by 2019, vendors were owed RM3b for work already done. The previous government's decision to disburse RM3b is meant for work already done, not additional work since 2018. There is nothing confusing about the maths. Industrial base enhancement (e.g. the RM200m) cannot be treated as separate from shipbuilding cost because those enhancements were needed to build the ships. The question is how much should be spent on an underbudgeted, mismanaged, and significantly delayed project. It didn't matter which government was in power. Eventually someone would have to answer why LCS1 wasn't delivered in 2019, and why additional funding is required. The PH government just bought forward the discussion and asked stakeholders to decide how they wish to proceed.