Liew Chin Tong said the reasons for the hold-up dated back to 2015 when Barisan Nasional (BN) was in government. PH was simply trying to clean up the problems uncovered in the project.
In a Facebook post, Liew took issue with senior minister of defence Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s claim that the previous government was “overwhelmed with investigations,” which caused work on the ships to stall.
Liew said the real causes of the delay, as identified by the investigation into defence procurement led by the special investigation committee on public governance, procurement, and finance, pre-dated PH’s time in power.
“Any delays experienced by the project are due to the inefficiency and lack of integrity of the Umno-Barisan Nasional government.
“The delay dates back to 2015 and is due to the detailed design which until today has still not been finalised, as well as Boustead Naval Shipyard’s financial liquidity problems.”
He said rather than point fingers, Ismail should simply release the committee’s report on the LCS and allow the people to judge.
Liew said the investigation also found that the project was “vendor driven,” where the requests of the contractor were prioritised over those of the end-user, in this case the Royal Malaysian Navy.
Ultimately it was decided that the project could proceed so long as the navy’s needs were at the forefront.
He said the investigation also uncovered that RM1 billion from the RM6 billion that the government had paid for the project could not be traced, which hinted at elements of corruption.
“The problem of ‘vendor-driven’ projects, corruption and malpractice in the LCS project occurred while Najib Razak, (Ahmad) Zahid Hamidi and Hishammuddin Hussein were ministers of defence. PH was just trying to clean up and improve the situation.”
The committee’s report also proposed for an immediate investigation into the missing funds, which was accepted by then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the defence ministry on Feb 11 last year, only for the government to fall less than two weeks later.