SHAH ALAM: Any plan B for the RMN? So far we have been told that the LCS project revival will be a successful with two ships to be delivered to the Royal Malaysian Navy by 2025. This was reported by the Public Accounts Committe report on the LCS.
And the Defence Ministry doubled-down on the delivery timeline with its senior minister Hishammuddin Hussein informing the Dewan Negara on August 8, that the two ships will be ready for the RMN within two years time. From Bernama:
KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 8): The government will report the schedule and progress of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) construction project in stages, said Senior Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.
He said his ministry was given six months to mobilise efforts to revive the project, and he believed the first ship would be delivered to the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) within two years.
“We will look at how we can ensure that the promised ships are delivered to the RMN and those who are guilty are brought to justice.
“I will report (inform) to the public the phased schedule for the construction of the ship,” he said during a question and answer session at the Dewan Negara sitting this morning.
However, we have heard Hishammuddin said the same thing on many occasions – during his first and current, second stint – at Jalan Padang Tembak and all of those have been proven incorrect. The PAC report bared it all. So can we believed what was the minister had said on August 8?
It interesting to note that Naval Group had offered to take over the project completely with BNS taking a less important role. The offer was declined though with the government putting LTAT as the lead to revive the project. So what will happened if Naval Group decided not to proceed with the revival then? As Naval Group is the design authority for the LCS, the project will go nowhere without its involvement. (the Government had mulled giving Naval Group the lead to revive the project but decided against it)
We have to wonder whether the Defence Ministry has a Plan B for RMN in case of the worse scenario. There is a real chance that LTAT and BNS might not be able to finish the ships as specified by the RMN. (According to the PAC report, BNS CEO stated they are confident that they can complete the ships. His statement was backed up by the fourth LCS RMN projec team head).
Will RMN have to accept the LCS even just to ensure that it got two ships for RM9 billion (and the other four if they were satisfied with the first two)? So Boustead and LTAT did not suffer much losses? This is the most likely scenario as RMN had to accept the Kedah class even though it was never fully satisfied with it. It was for this reason, it went looking for another hull….
It must be noted LMS Batch II is not the plan B, a replacement for the LCS. It is always been RMN’s plan to have five type of ships in its future fleet.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (60)
As for me i will hold that 3 billion and speed up the procument of LMS batch 2 from designer shipyard this time from korea for example.3 billion should get us 2 maybe 3 sub 2000 tonnes OPV/LMS/Corvette with ample armaments maybe a 57mm gun, a point air defence and 4 SSM..Or else our beloved and competent govt can always pump another 3 billion for BNS to finish just 2 ships for the sake of "vendors who are mostly armies vets"..And i definately cant accept 9 billions just to finish two ships and i dont think anyone would too..Bns messed up although not entirely their fault but still they need to sort out their mess themselves
Money is an issue; the status of the LCS remains to be seen and the GE is next year. The best we can hope for is the LMS Batch 2s get funded sooner rather than later and the fit out is not scaled back due to funding issues.
Arming the Kedahs would be great but only gives them a self defence capability as was originally intended and will not change the fact that the RMN is short of hulls. In case anyone mentions buying pre owned hulls as an interim solution this isn't an option as far as the government or RMN are concern due to commonality and long term maintenance issues.
Looks like the government thinks it can cover the losses with offsets and other means. I talked to one person who is inside the programme and he said RM9 billion is kacang puteh. They are not bothered. Perhaps RMN should reduce the ship back to its original design without the enlargement. This will bring the cost down. I am not suprised the rest of this ship equipments will be FFBNW like the Kedahs. Kiss it goodbye.
Regardless whether they liked these boats or not, their critical need for hulls outweigh their distaste for not getting the ship they wanted. Just as with LMS Batch1 at most they will simply not continue with Gowind for if & when they decided to go ahead for LCS Batch2.
Again I will repeat, it doesn't matter which ship they eventually go for, even if they gotten what they wanted and equipped with what they wanted fully, if we don't do due diligence and budget "correctly" (means taking account of national project inefficiencies & wastages), whatever next will still be doomed once again.
The change of BNS into an SPV is a start but need to revamp their management, fire all those involved, and put a Mindef personnel in charge. With Wistleblower Act, those middle managers are just as complicit as the higher ups when none of them reported the issues until PAC report.
Firdaus - "As for me i will hold that 3 billion and speed up the procument of LMS batch 2 from designer shipyard this time from korea for example"
That doesn't solve the problem and the RMN would still have a need for primary combatants. Less we forget the LMS is intended for a different role to the LCS.
Firdaus - " but still they need to sort out their mess themselves"
Must as well wish for Cinderella to be seen in Putra Jaya. Obviously BNS can't "sort out their mess themselves" and if they go under it will snowball; the RMN for one would be severely impacted.
Any update on kd Muhammad amin? Iirc it underwent a rehull effort or something
Qamarul - " They are not bothered. Perhaps RMN should reduce the ship back to its original design without the enlargement"
What?? This is the least of the problems and will not lead to costs savings. Also what "enlargement"? Look at the pic Marhalim posted. The Gowind family comprises several designs of varying sizes/displacements - it's not as if the RMN took a design and stretched it to enable a size or displacement similar to Musashi or Prinz Eugen.
@Qamarul
"inside the programme and he said RM9 billion is kacang puteh"
Kacang Puteh coz for such a ship with this size of project, realistically RM 9Bil would have been insufficient anyhow even without the wastage & leakages. They would have fully aware there will be more requests for money thru Supplementary Budgets but that plan fell thru when PH took over and refused to play ball. RM 12Bil would have been a realistic sum then but now it would take RM 15Bil to complete all 6.
This revelation caused a ho-hah in mindef. Was told by mindef high level insiders that Government is keen to close the case with max 2 ships of Gowind and prepare to pump in more money to avoid the public from questioning the huge amount paid but no ships. Very likely only 2 gowind hulls will be completed by 2025 to 2026 timeframe, the other 4 will be scrapped.
Now that we know, Sigma 10513 is a rather odd choice prefered by the RMN. Fully fitted out it will still be second best to the Formidable's.
Back to the LCS, for the amount of money involved maybe they could build 8 of them.