Back To The Drawing Board – SPH and KJA 4X4

TAI Anka UAV on finals. TAI

SHAH ALAM: Back to the drawing board. It appears that the SPH and armoured 4X4s for the Army will be up for tender soon. This will be the logical conclusion after PM10 DS Anwar Ibrahim announced this morning that there will be no procurement approval without tender in his administration.

The business end of the Caesar 155mm SPH.

From The Edge

PUTRAJAYA (Nov 29): Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has stressed that approvals for government procurements under his leadership can no longer be conducted without tender.

Speaking at a gathering with the staff of the Prime Minister’s Department here on Tuesday (Nov 29), Anwar said the Government under his leadership will not continue to allow leakages and corruption.

“There can no longer be procurements approvals without tender.

“Therefore, I would like to call on all of you to work together as a team. Let’s be committed to save our country,” he said.

The PM said when he was in charge of the Ministry of Finance in the past, he had given instructions not to allow his family members or close friends to have interests in government-related projects.

Anwar, who was sworn in as the PM last Thursday, said he is not interested in ”digging” the problems of the previous government, but to focus on working to improve the people’s lives.

“The people’s lives, in general, are not as bad as in some countries, but they are in a rather difficult situation.

“I’m not interested in digging up old stories…what’s important is the future, what we can and should do in preparing ourselves for the future,” he said.

MKEK Yavuz 155mm SPH. Internet

Why SPH and the armoured 4X4s then? Malaysian Defence had reported that both had been awarded the Letter of Intent (LOI) during the PM9 administration through direct negotiations instead of tenders.
Republic of Korea Air Force KAI TA-50. KAI

With a new administration in charge, it is unlikely the Defence Ministry will move ahead with the Letter of Award (LOA) stage, Malaysian Defence was told. This would happen anyway regardless of who becomes PM, either Anwar or Muhyiddin. What about others then? Those which had gone through the tender process and had been awarded the LOI and LOAs will move ahead, Malaysian Defence was told. As for when the tenders for the SPH and armoured 4X4s will be made public, it is beyond me. That said it is likely that it will be next year.

— Malaysian Defence

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21 Comments

  1. The problem is that the SPH order came direct from….and they would have benefited from it. That said if they want to keep it, perhaps a change in the local agent would be good enough way to save the deal or turned it to a government to government deal. But then again the deal came about from a direct negotiations instead of a tender

  2. Good development. All the shady under table deals will be destroyed.
    The SPH & 4X4 is not a priority so it’s manageable.
    The priority is the LMS Batch 2

  3. Sph and 4×4 is not a priority? yeah right..Army only need SPH like from 90’s and they need to replace that ancient condors too..Yeah not a priority at all.Mind you our Army need more than SPH,4×4 they also in dire need of additional LG1,and that choppers to replace the nuris

  4. The one good thing that PH brought then was an open tender procurement process which was continued under PN, but I was disappointed the next BN Govt had reverted back to closed nego deals. This revision back to open tendering would albeit create more the merrier but at least there is less controversies and we will get what we buy. Some here would disagree with via tendering but that’s their opinion.

    As for SPH & UAV, I doubt even via tender it woulda changed the result much as Anwar too has close ties with Turk. Sorry to break the news but TDM won’t be getting their hankered Caesars.

  5. I was grinning privately. The 4X4s and the SPH would probably proceed in 2023/2024 but it probably won’t include any Caesars. Erdogan would probably put soft pressure on PM10 to look ‘his way’ when SPH and 4X4s are up for tender again!

  6. Firdaus – ”Army only need SPH like from 90’s”

    The SPH requirement only arised in the early 2000’s following the raising of 4th Mechanised Brigade and 11th Armoured Regiment.

  7. In the case of 2 more MOH for tldm, tender again? Would it better to have a different kind of measurement what should tender andcwhat should direct purchase? If open tender, it possible end up different brand of helicopter.

  8. Why all the gloom? I’d be overjoyed if the LCA, MPA, UAV and LCS progressed this RMK. Can’t have everything all at once.

  9. @Tom Tom
    “LCA, MPA, UAV and LCS progressed this RMK”
    And where are we gonna get the money to buy all those in this RMK huh? Or you mean since Anwar is PM now, Aussie gonna be shoveling moolahs in our direction to buy all those? In that case, hey I’m all for external influence and neocolonialism!

  10. To be fair, uncle Sam is the only one out there that’s capable of helping us evolve out of the middle income trap by granting high value added manufacturing licences to build here as well as preferential access to their market.

  11. To be fair, we should have leveraged on our manufacturing & CKD assembly knowhow to step up and innovate to create our own IPs and move up the value chain. Unfortunately our private sectors & manufacturers are contend to just remain static with not so many local efforts and even less successes. We now find ourselves fighting badly with Indonesia & Indochina nations for that cheap manufacturing pie when we should’ve left that 10-15 years ago, but instead these manufacturers left us and go to cheaper ASEAN nations now.

    So no, nobody is going to continue spoonfeeding us for new innovations moreso Uncle Sam. Look at their chip tech restrictions placed on 3rd/4th countries to prevent IP leaks to China.

    Instead what we have is hangerons SME, Deftech, BNS, and pseudo makers like Kembara Suci & Cendana Auto reskinning products of foreign makes.

  12. If we look at SK & TW. They also experienced democratisation more or less at the same time that their middle income traps stagnation hits hard. The citizen push away the old guard as they are unable to evolve away from the tried & tested approach of yesteryears of being cheap manufacturing bases.

    In the chip business for example. SK & TW is king but their IP is built on top of US IP, next step down is SG which get certain approval so a certain manufacturing step can only be done in SG. Then it’s us & TH who get approval so some manufacturing could be done here.

    Basically the more closer one country are to the US, the higher their value added position is in the chips supplies chain which in defense also translate to a better ability to buy certain US weapons.

    If we are unable to secure let say against IP leak from the chip business to China then we would also unable to get more security risk manufacturing activities to be setup here which make us unable to move up the economics value chain nor secure us a purchase of technologically advanced weapons like the F35 for example.

  13. The closer we get to USA the more intertwined we get into their hegemonic policies and trade wars. Taiwan is suffering from the chip IP embargo imposed as many of their customers ie OEM electronics, have manufacturing bases in China. Some chipmarkers are now predicting a glut in their capacity which used to be filled by Chinese electronics makers. Those of us are gaining from this predicament but imagine if we’re in their shoes when we get this close as well, we too would be burnt.

    What we need is more local innovations that are more resilient to global politics. IINM, Sarawak Govt are pushing for local chip fab which can leverage Silterra and our local design houses can make use rather than subcon externally.

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