Defence analyst Lam Choong Wah of Universiti Malaya said the practice had been going on for decades and started because defence firms needed agents who understood the defence ministry’s systems and its needs.
“But, most importantly, these agents would know the officers in charge of procurement,” he told FMT. “Sometimes these agents would be called ‘cablemen’ in the defence ministry. Since they are former senior officials, it’s unsurprising that they would be able to form a close relationship with serving senior officers.”
Lam, a former fellow of the Research for Social Advancement centre, said the government could enact a law or draw up procurement guidelines to outlaw such agents from dealing with the defence ministry.
On Saturday, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Ibrahim, criticised the defence ministry for being “full of agents or former generals who have become salesmen”, saying this drove up the prices of defence procurements.
Sultan Ibrahim urged the government to scrutinise proposed deals thoroughly, warning against simply following the suggestions of these agents. His warning came after he urged the ministry to scrap its plan to procure second-hand Black Hawk helicopters, which the king said would mean purchasing aircraft over 30 years old.
Maritime affairs expert Salawati Mat Basir of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia said action must be taken swiftly to ensure Putrajaya would not lose billions of ringgit to these agents or defence firms through procurements for the military.
Salawati said Malaysia was clearly lagging behind several regional neighbours in modernising its military equipment, a situation which cannot be allowed to persist.
She said the best example of public funds going to waste in defence procurement was the billions believed to be lost in the controversial littoral combat ship project, with an original cost of RM9 billion, said to be the largest defence procurement in Malaysia’s history.
The project came under intense scrutiny in 2022 after the Public Accounts Committee revealed that not one of the six ships had been completed although more than RM6 billion had been paid out by the government.
Delays and cost overruns brought the project cost to RM11 billion while the number of vessels to be delivered was reduced from six to five.
Former navy chief Ahmad Ramli Nor was charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust over the project but was granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal in March after the court ruled that he was unfit for trial.