Special Parliament to ring-fence LCS issue from political party differences to achieve the four-fold objectives to complete the six LCS, fight corruption in defence procurement, protect the welfare of military and ex-military personnel and safeguard the nation’s security and sovereignty

Johore State Opposition Leader and DAP Deputy Secretary-General, Liew Chin Tong has called for a Special Parliament over the Littoral Combatant Ship (LCS) controversy.

I am giving my personal views as I have not spoken to any leader in DAP, Pakatan Harapan or other political parties.

I support the convening of a Special Parliament to ring-fence the LCS issue from political party differences to achieve the four-fold objectives of:

(i) Complete the six LCS;

(ii) Fight corruption in defence procurement;

(iii) Protect the welfare of military and ex-military personnel’; and

(iv) Safeguard the nation’s security and sovereignty.

This is an opportunity for all political parties to agree that they are all on the same page with regard to these four objectives in the LCS controversy and to ring-fence the issue from political party differences so that the nation can single-mindedly move forward on the LCS issue.

Malaysia received a low D rating of 45% in the Transparency International (TI)’s Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI) for 2020 – the D rating indicates weak institutional resilience to graft.

Let cross-party co-operation of Members of Parliament on the LCS issue in Parliament be the beginning of national campaign to raise Malaysia’s GDI from the D rating to the C rating, which will have a quantum influence on Malaysia TI’s Corruption Perception Index.

The Ministry of Defence should also reform and abandon its practice of direct negotiations with certain parties and instead carry out open tenders.

The Malaysian taxpayers should know how their tax money are being spent in defence procurements and also avoid outdated military equipment being purchased at very high cost.

Information should be made available to parliamentarians who will then be able to debate over the defence budget and monitor the procurement process to prevent similar scandal like the RM9 billion LCS scandal and other previous defence procurement scandals.

The situation where a handful of cronies of a Prime Minister can become multi-millionaires as a result of corruption in defence procurements while the military and ex-military personnel as well as the rakyat suffer, must not be allowed to continue.