By Xavier Kong
Leasing commercial airlines, yes, but fighter jets? Tiger scratches his head in puzzlement. Commercial aircraft are much safer for one. What happens when a fighter crashes? What happens when there is war? Will anyone even insure it? How does a lease operate without insurance? The mind boggles!
Tiger looks up at the sky in annoyance, and growls in frustration. He doesn’t understand what the deal is with those loud birds in the air, screeching their death knells and belching their black smoke.
What’s more, Tiger heard, from the rumbles in the jungle, that the Malaysian government is looking to get more of them! But this is where Tiger smells something fishy (not the delectable kind, however much Tiger wished it was).
Here’s the fish: Malaysia’s plan on having more of these death traps flying in the air is to lease them from their manufacturers, and this immediately caused Tiger to perk up his ears in surprise. From what Tiger knows, leasing fighter jets is a rare occurrence in the international defence circuit, and it raises many questions about the state of Malaysia’s economy.
The first would be whether or not Malaysia can afford these jets, as even one jet, let’s say one of the Sukhoi-30MKM, which was specially designed for Malaysia by the Irkut Corporation, acquired five years ago can range between US$35 million to US$53 million (RM155 million), with the deal between Russia and Malaysia costing US$900 million (RM3.42 billion) in total for the 18 craft.
For 2014, the Defence Ministry got an allocation RM16.1 billion – RM13.355 billion as operating expenditure (OE) and RM2.745 billion for development costs (DE) – some RM849 million higher compared to the budget in 2013 which was RM15.251 billion (RM11.970 billion for operating costs and RM3.281 billion for development.
Tiger realises this is simple mathematics, that Malaysia cannot afford to pull off another deal like the Sukhoi-30MKM one five years ago. With that being said, is Malaysia really in such desperate straits of defence that we need to have those planes, lease or otherwise, by 2015?
All this may be connected to some news Tiger had heard from his cousins in Borneo, that China had claimed that big pool of water and some islands near Borneo as well. This may very well be one of the reasons that the government is pushing for more jets, in an interest of national defence, considering China is not even participating in the talks regarding this issue.
According to the whispers that Tiger has heard as he traversed the concrete jungle, the top contenders of the lease, according to Russian press agency Ria Novosti are McDonnell Douglas Boeing Defense, Space and Security’s F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets, Dassault Aviation’s Rafale, Eurofighter’s Typhoon, and Saab group’s JAS 39 Gripen.
The four choices would each compliment the set that Malaysia already has, and according to journal Defense News, Boeing and Saab are the top two contenders of the four, Saab because of its experience in leases like the one Malaysia plans, due to similar deals with Hungary and the Czech Republic, and Boeing because, well, it’s from the United States, and since Barack Obama is visiting Malaysia next month.
Still, leasing these metal birds feels very uncomfortable for Tiger, considering the point that these jets are meant to be flown in rather punishing ways, and since Malaysia is already leasing the planes instead of buying them, it would be rather difficult to pay for the planes if they crash or go missing, won’t it?
Oh yes, Tiger is referring to those issues back in 2007 to 2009, when jet engines were stolen and sold to a South American company. Then there was also the event during the delivery of the Su-30s from Russia in 2003, when the engine suffered from foreign object damage while landing at the airbase, or how about the accidents that lost Malaysia two MiG-29Ns?
With that, TIger has had enough ruminating about the loud metal contraptions, and heads off to find sustenance and slumber in the concrete jungle. May the humans leading the country make the right choice about this, because either way, Tiger thinks people will be unhappy with this.
GRRRRR!
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