Mentari Services Sdn Bhd chairperson Capt (rtd) Zahar Hashim today confirmed that he had penned a five-page letter last week questioning the alleged discrepancies in the government's tender process for the procurement of a new fleet of helicopters for the armed forces.

The letter addressed to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in his capacity as the former defence minister had been published in several websites, including Malaysiakini.

"Yes, I wrote the letter. It was purely for commercial purposes and has nothing to do with politics. It was based on facts that we had received from sources," stressed Zahar, who is also the Petaling Jaya Selatan Umno division chief.

helicopter military mi 172 kf kazan troop transporter The retired captain told Malaysiakini that his company was representing one of the four shortlisted bidders, the Canadian-based Kelowna Flightcraft Ltd, which had offered to sell its Russian-made Kazan-M172 helicopters.

According to Zahar, there were other bidders but only four companies were shortlisted because they met at least 95 percent of the specifications stipulated by the Defence Ministry.

His letter, dated Oct 7, was also copied to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over the defence portfolio on Sept 17, the Public Accounts Committee chairperson, Anti-Corruption Agency director-general and Public Complaints Bureau director-general.

Zahar pointed out that he had also included the relevant section of the Anti-Corruption Act 1997.

"In line with Section 8 (b) and (c) of the Anti-Corruption Act 1997, it is hoped that you (the director-general) would pay attention and take the necessary action based on the information contained in this letter," he wrote.

However, Zahar said he had yet to hear from any of the agencies.

Was the tender process a gimmick?

In the letter, the retired captain also suggested that the tender process, initiated during Najib's tenure, could have been a "gimmick" since the ministry appeared to favour one particular company.

Zahar also accused Najib of providing the prime minister with an 'inaccurate' report pertaining to the contract.

malaysia military helicopter contract 141008 "(With) the price offered by Eurocopter for 12 units of Cougar EC-725 worth (an estimated of) RM2.3I7 billion, the government could purchase 30 Kazan-M172 (from Kelowna Flightcraft Ltd) which fulfills almost all the specifications required by the armed forces," he said.

Zahar said that the offer from Kelowna for a dozen of similar choppers was RM898 million. "The difference in the price offered by Eurocopter and the price offered by Kelowna Flightcraft Ltd is RM1.419 billion."

The other two companies which lost out to Eurocopter in clinching the contract were British-Italian's AgustaWestland and American-owned Sikorsky, the manufacturer of the famous Black Hawk copters and the Sikorsky S61, known in Malaysia as Nuri.

The government had decided to replace the Nuri helicopters, following a spate of crashes involving the aging choppers which have been in service since 1968.

Hasty decision to ink deal questioned

Zahar also questioned the ministry's hasty decision to ink the Letter of Intent (LOI) with the German-French firm, Eurocopter.

According to him, the LOI was signed without going through the evaluation process and was approved two days before Najib was moved to the Finance Ministry.

"We do not know if representatives from Eurocopter and AgustaWestland were called in by the evaluation team for negotiations and to provide further explanations regarding their offers, but the representatives of Kelowna and Sikorsky were never contacted at all.

"The offer to you (Najib) from our company to prepare a Kazan MI-172 to be used and tested by the armed forces for six months for free did not get any response from you. The offer by Sikorsky for a test flight of their S-92 helicopter was also not entertained," he said.

"The manner in which the Cougar EC-725 was chosen creates doubt if the ministry, under your stewardship, was truly serious, clean and trustworthy in its move to evaluate all the offers from the bidders or is there a possibility that the evaluation process was merely a gimmick while (you) had already planned from the onset to purchase the Cougar EC-725 for specific reasons," he added.