Minister defends RM16b helicopters rental, says it's more cost-effective

PARLIAMENT | Defence Minister Khaled Nordin has again defended Putrajaya's move to rent 28 helicopters for 15 years, which will be used by security forces.

Speaking in the Dewan Rakyat today, Khaled (BN-Kota Tinggi) gave a series of points to justify the move which he claimed is going to be more cost-effective compared to direct purchase.

By renting, he said the government does not have to fork out money from its coffer to pay for the aircraft's deposits, progress payment and capital expenditure, where the burden is instead transferred to the leasing company.

Malaysia would only have to start paying for rental of the helicopters after they receive the aircraft and it would be according to their monthly usage, he said.

"If we were to purchase the helicopters, we surely would have to pay all the costs and start paying from now before we get the assets.

"We will also have to settle all payments before any of the assets gets delivered," he said in his winding-up speech.

According to Khaled, the decision to rent the helicopters was also to increase security forces' assets readiness.

This was due to issues faced by the security forces in the past where their assets could not be utilised due to maintenance downtime, inefficient service problems, and incidents where the assets were damaged beyond economical repair.

"Thus, after factoring in these realities, one of the main factors in this decision was that the company must guarantee a certain level of asset readiness.

"We have given the company a condition, where they are obligated to make sure the readiness of the helicopters must be at least 85 percent at any given time.

"Before this, our directly purchased assets were only at between 40 percent and 45 percent readiness," he said.

Adding further, Khaled said the company also has to get insurance coverage for all the aircraft, crew members and passengers.

This includes "underslung" operations, he said when answering a question from Ikmal Hisham Abdul Aziz (PN-Tanah Merah).

Underslung operations refer to carrying cargo externally by hanging it underneath a helicopter by using equipment such as slings or cargo nets.

Special care is needed from the pilot and ground crew to ensure underslung cargo is secured properly and does not sway in such a way that threatens the helicopter’s stability.

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