Earlier this July, Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu revealed that the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) is in a poor state as only four out of the 28 Russian fighters jets owned by the RMAF are able to actually fly.
Today (Aug 9), during the question and answer session at the Parliament, Mohamad Sabu, or more commonly known as Mat Sabu, stated that our national defence level, which was once top in the region in the 1970s, has been on a steady decline over the years, as reported by FMT.
In fact, our defence level is now lower than Vietnam’s!
Source: Berita Daily
“This is shameful, especially in the international arena,” he said.
He added that Indonesia is now the first in the region.
“We will work hard to make Malaysia great again, to become number one.”
His statement was in response to Danyal Balagopal Abdullah’s question whether there would be problems receiving allocations to carry out plans in the ministry.
Mat Sabu, acknowledged that there had been issues in the flow of funds. He said the RMAF, for instance, had requested RM1.8 billion for the maintenance of the Sukhoi fighter jets but only RM1.1 billion was approved in the budget.
“They need major repairs,” he added.
Source: The Rakyat Post
Blaming the previous government would not save the situation, Mat Sabu said, as the ministry has to move forward and carry out efforts to improve Malaysia’s defence system.
“Whatever weaknesses there were in the past, we will not repeat the same mistakes. If there are any loopholes which encourage corruption, we will ask the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate.”
He stated that the ministry was looking to hire available experts or locals to replace and maintain some of the military assets which were over 20 years old.
The Defence Minister further said that the ministry was carrying out multiple-way training exercises with the US, Indonesia and Thailand.
Well, judging from the current state of our country’s defence level, the government really needs to put in an effort to restore our military facilities, and improve the defence level of our country.
Also read: Mat Sabu: Only 4 Out of 28 Fighter Jets At RMAF Can Fly Due to Poor Maintenance
