Zahid should explain why he has not told the full story to UMNO leaders and members the main role played by him and Najib in the RM9 billion LCS scandal?
The UMNO President, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi should explain why he has not told the full story to UMNO leaders and members the main role played by him and Najib Razak in the RM9 billion littoral combatant ships (LCS) scandal – the new 1MDB scandal of Malaysia?
I agree with the DAP National Publicity Secretary and MP for Kulai, Teo Nie Ching, that former Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Najib Razak and Zahid, as the Defence Minister at the time, cannot deny responsibility for the LCS scandal.
She said: “This is true as a whopping RM1.02 billion was paid to mobilise the project without any deliverables in the RM9 billion project.”
In fact, this is the only conclusion to be drawn from two declassified reports on the LCS scandal, the Ambrin Report of the Special Investigation Committee on Public Governance, Procurement and Finance the LCS (JKUSTUPKK) and the report of the forensic audit of the LCS procurement (2011-2014) carried out by Alliance IFA (M) Sdn. Bhd.
This is why it was most dishonest and self-serving when Zahid said three weeks ago that it was unreasonable to pin the failure of the LCS procurement on him as he claimed he was not the defence minister when the project was awarded.
Zahid had no answer when I pointed out he, as Defence Minister in July 2011, had overturned his own decision as recommended by the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) to contract six Dutch-made Sigma LCS and chose the Scorpene manufacturer’s six French-made Gowind LCS within three days without consulting the Navy, the end-user.
In fact, the RM9 billion LCS was so contractor-centric instead of end user-driven, that the Navy never knew that the decision had been overturned until informed by the contractor.
No wonder the then head of Royal Malaysian Navy, Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar said in one of his 10 letters of protest – five to the Defence Minister and two to the Prime Minister which were all ignored – that “there is no precedent of the design being decided by the main contractor and not the end-user”.
Abdul Aziz said “something was gravely wrong” as the navy and not the contractor should be setting the terms of the LCS contract but the Royal Malaysian Navy was “fighting a losing battle”.
Can Zahid now explain?
Is this reason why UMNO Youth is in favour of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the LCS scandal, while he himself is against it, although he had had not declared it publicly?
In fact, this unusual event where the Defence Minister sided with the contractor against the end-user, the RMN, is not only unprecedented in world naval history, but makes nonsense of the 2020 Royal Malaysia Navy masterplan to have five LCS by now.
Anyone perusing the declassified reports on the LCS scandal would be troubled by the question why the Defence Minister at that time overturned his own decision to side with the contractor against the end-user, the Royal Malaysian Navy, in the largest naval procurement in the nation’s history.
Was Zahid ordered by Najib, who was then the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, to do so?
Only a Royal Commission of Inquiry would be able to flush out Najib’s actual role in the LCS scandal.
Zahid should not pass the responsibility for the LCS scandal solely to his successor as Defence Minister, Hishamuuddin Hussein, who succeeded him as Defence Minister after the 13th General Election, although the LCS contract was signed on 17th July 2014 when it should be signed before 16th April 2012, as most of the shenanigans of corruption, breach of trust, abuse of power and cheating en masse took place when Zahid was Defence Minister.