EVEN as he was busy attending his final appeal to nullify his 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)-linked graft trial that culminated in a 12-year jail sentence and RM210 mill in fines, former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak was still able to find time to deny accusations that his administration should be blamed for the RM9 bil littoral combat ship (LCS) fiasco.
Furnishing a chronology of events, Najib (without revealing the number of vessels) said the level of construction progress for the LCS between January 2015 (the start of physical construction date) and April 2018 – the month prior to the 14th General Election (GE14) which spanned a 39-month period – was 53%.
“But from May 2018 (after the GE14) till today, the desire level stood at only 56%,” he revealed in a Facebook posting. “Construction progress rose only 3% since GE14 after the project was delayed and kept frozen by PH (referring to the Pakatan Harapan Government). This is a FACT!”
Najib went on to explain that the project only resumed in May 2022 by the government of the day following the PH freeze and “after two years of pandemic where emergency and half-baked lockdown measures which were among the longest in the world to save the then PM’s position (Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s tenure) made it difficult to implement projects.”
“The cost incurred for each month the project freeze took effect is RM50 mil as revealed by (Prime Minister Datuk Seri) Ismail Sabri (Yaakob) last year,” noted Najib.
“There is no denying that the project started late with a progress level of 50.15% when it should have supposedly reached 70% as scheduled in January 2018 as stated by Mat Sabu (former defence minister Mohamad Sabu).”
This, according to Najib, was the reason why there was a delay by Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd (BNS) to complete the first ship in April 2019 as scheduled (which is nearly a year after GE14).
“But this is a late project. It’s not that construction has never started like the Penang tunnel project,” Najib took a swipe at the opposition DAP which is helming the Penang state government.
“Projects that are delayed can be rescued and accelerated. The contractors are neither private cronies nor anyone else’s cronies but (appointed by) LTAT (Armed Forces Fund Board). Many other DAP and PH projects have also been delayed without being frozen.”
In this regard, Najib cried foul as to why the LCS project was frozen instead of the PH Government lending a hand to help BNS and the 8,000 workers involved in the project.
“If the project is frozen, we will not get any results in the end. The ship won’t grow itself,” he justified. “Is PH so incompetent that it doesn’t know how to help? What has the PH Government done to help BNS expedite the project?”
Najib also wanted to know how many ringgit has been approved by the PH Government during its administration to facilitate the LCS project given there was still RM3 bil left in the budget after the then Barisan Nasional (BN) Government having paid RM6 bil from the total allocation of RM9.1 bil for the project.
“Or PH seems to only want to undermine BNS and LTAT at all cost so as to level the blame on BN,” asked Najib. “As if they only want to see failure of the local industry or rather, the country’s warship building ecosystem capability.” – Aug 16, 2022
Main photo credit: Malaysiakini and FMT
