The Defence Ministry's move to shoot down the need for a bi-partisan parliamentary oversight committee on defence expenditure, shows it lacks transparency and accountability.

This position, said Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua, goes against the Government Transformation Plan (GTP) initiative.

NONE Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's statement that he "is confident in the ability and transparency of the evaluation committee of the three branches of the Malaysian Armed Forces" showed his contemptuous arrogance towards such principles, said Pua, who is also DAP national publicity secretary.

"This also proves Transparency International was right by scoring Malaysia at only 4.5 points out of a maximum of 12, or only 37.5 percent, well below the failure mark, in its inaugural Transparency of Defence Budgets Report last month," he added.

The director of International Defence and Security Programme for TI in United Kingdom, Mark Pyman, said: "Malaysia ranked far below other countries, as the budget lacked details and no audits were undertaken of the secret programmes."

Ahmad Zahid Umno VP Malaysia earned the dubious distincition of being ranked alongside Afghanistan, Rwanda, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the report, and is well below other countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The results of the research indicate approximately 14 percent of the countries under review in the study scored high and these were primarily developed countries with strong democratic systems.

Pua further said Ahmad Zahid's disdain towards transparency and accountability was best epitomised in his reply to a question he posed in the recently-concluded parliamentary sitting.

"I had asked the minister to explain the huge gap between the RM7.55 billion paid to Deftech Sdn Bhd for 257 armoured personnel carriers and RM1.7 billion for the same items to be paid later to FNSS Defences Systems, a Turkish defence manufacturer," he said.

NONE "The minister acknowledged these transactions, but had the gall to claim 'no knowledge' of the details of the Deftech-FNSS transactions and hence was not able to explain the difference in costs for the two contracts."

Deftech is a subsidiary of DRB-Hicom Bhd, based in Pekan, Pahang, a company controlled by Umno-linked businessperson Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhari.

Pyman, in an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini last month, said intermediaries are recipes for corruption .

Questions over Eurocopter and PSV purchase

Pua said the Defence Ministry had in the past also failed to explain other sizeable transactions, such as the RM6 billion purchase of six second generation patrol vessels as well as the RM2.3 billion acquisition of 12 Eurocopter EC725 helicopters.

NONE "The answer most often given by the minister and defence officials to justify the much higher pricing has been that the military equipment were 'customised to our specific needs'."

"Pyman ( right ) had stated that it is in the best interests of the government that customisation is kept at a bare minimum as it disproportionately drives costs up.

"He said that it 'doubles the base price before you can say good morning. It's not value for money, difficult and dangerous'," said the DAP politician.

Pua also said the the best justification for such a parliamentary oversight committee was that it would prevent the annual litany of scandals and transgressions reported in the Auditor-General Reports on the Defence Ministry.

malaysia military helicopter contract 141008 "We call upon the government to honour the Prime Minister's GTP, which pledges transparency and accountability, by setting up the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence, modelled after the United States House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations.

"The US Oversight subcommittee overlooks after defence policies as well as the US Defense Budget Appropriation Committees, which review and approve detailed defence expenditure."

Otherwise, Pua added, Zahid's contemptuous attitude towards transparency and accountability would be seen as a lack of honesty and sincerity on the part of the the PM to honour his GTP pledges.