PENANG: As stated in the previous post, the Defense Ministry was hoping that the Special Forces will get an extra allocation from the 2018 budget.
It appears that they had. Prime Minister DS Najib Razak when announcing the 2018 budget stated that an allocation of RM50 million will be given to the Special Forces. However he did not say what the allocation will be used for.
And for the Defence Ministry, it has been allocated RM15.863 billion for 2018. Most of the allocation is for the Operating Expenditure – RM12.566 billion – while the Development Expenditure is RM3.297 billion.
However as there was no breakdown of the OE and DE figures, I cannot determined where the RM50 million for the Special Forces allocation is coming from. And it is likely most of the DE funds are for those things already delivered or in the pipeline like the A400M, LCS and the AV8.
Najib also said that RM250 million will be allocated for ESSCOM while another RM50 million has been set to pay for coastal surveillance radars also for the same area.
Again as there was no breakdown of the allocation, the RM300 million could come either from the Defence Ministry budget or even the RM9 billion allocated for the police. Or even from the National Security Agency.
MMEA also get an allocation of RM900 million of which RM450 million will be used for maintenance and the procurement of three patrol boats.
Several hours after the budget was released, RMAF official Twitter account announced that the 2018 allocation for the Defence Ministry included funding for 4 MPAs. This was not mentioned in the budget documents so this is definitely something worth following up.
-Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (20)
But...what will approximately USD 12 million buy? Seems a tiny amount only.
Hopefully this MPA thing is true and comes together with ISR capabilities.
funding for 4 MPA??this will be interesting. RMAF will surely get another type of aircraft to operate as always,the more the merrier. hopefully get the same as we already operate.
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If its for brand new MPAs it will be a small amount just for the down payment
So far in RMK11, the development budget annually is around the same, so we could assume the total development budget for 5 years would be around usd3.8-4.0 billion. Divide by 3 that would be somewhere around usd1.3-1.5 billion per service.
That said most big ticket items are paid through multiple RMKs. Lets extrapolate what is being paid for each service in RMK11
Army
- gempita (1st half payment) usd1 billion
- starstreak usd230 million
- others
Navy
- SGPV (1st half payment) usd1 billion
- scorpene refit usd300 million
- LMS (1st half payment) usd130 million
- others
Air force
- A400M (3rd quarter payment) usd600 million
- MPA (waiting to see the allocation)
- thales ground master radar usd50 million
- PC-7 mk2 (5units) usd30 million
- others (cannot see how the MRCA could be paid in less than 2 RMKs. If that is the case better go for 5th gen fighter starting RMK12 or replace hawks and mb339s 1st)
For the 4x MPA, now we really need a long range aircraft, as we need to fly over the Sulu sea too (the trilateral air patrol). That would be more than 1000km from Labuan.
i'm happy if we acquired the specific mpa as depicted in the graphic.. ;)
How bout the Japanese P3 Orion? Let's go with that one if budget is really tight. Unless the RMAF only want new toys I don't see any reason not to acquire that one. Maintenance is not a big issue if we can ask the Jap for spare part at a low prices.
Doubt we can afford a P8 Poseidon, look more like a subtle jab to the PM that this is actually what we want initially.
But if buget allocated that much, I would prefer we get the Saab Globaleye as AIO solution. The air force get it AWEC they always wanted and also a MPA in one.
Though it lack deploy able sonabouy and hard point mounting, i assume
Wishful thinking but that's a P-8 on the Twitter page!! Won't that be great?!
I hope What MPA we could buy. But please Don't say Poseidon (It is Too Costy). C-295MP or Others would be Good
Turbopro or turbojet, the MPA is long overdue.