The Govt must come clean with plane engines and other losses.

My super sleuth friend Walla raised some disturbing points. They are as follows:-

In 1985, the govt bought 88 A4 Sky hawks of Vietnam War vintage from the US. It paid only RM127, 000 for the whole lot. The catch was it had to also cough out RM320 million to refurbish them with new engines, avionics and armaments.
Of these 88 jet fighters, only 53 were taken out of the Arizona desert where they were mothballed in 1996. Of the 53, 40 were refurbished for use by the RMAF, 12 were cannibalized for parts and 1 was returned for maintenance training.
My question is what has happened to the remaining 35 jet planes in that desert? Syed Hamid who was Mindef minister at that time was quoted as saying the govt would retain 4 of those 35 mothballed planes for displays and parts. Which means 31 A4 Skyhawk jet planes are unaccounted for.
Now, a lot of people had misgivings about the whole purchase. The govt apparently defended that it was a good investment to get experience before buying Mig's.
I am not sure the US would have been too happy about such statements on the comparability of hardware of cold war adversaries.

From the above account, we don't even know what we have and what we lost. Or we in fact knew the whole story, but the relevant authorities are sweeping everything under the carpets.

Which makes me to once again ask the question? What did we lose that amounted to USD 29 million?

On the 25^th of December I wrote asking, what did we lose that totalled USD29 million? That's over RM 100 million. The defence Minister, Zahid Hamidi said sternly that the cost of the engines was RM 100 million. He warned the traitors will be dealt with. Some other people shouted treason and treason is punishable by death. Unless of course there are no laws covering treasonous acts any more.

So what did we lose? Just yesterday, the defence minister once again came out with a new figure. The engines cost RM 300,000 plus each. So 2 engines cost RM 600k or RM700k tops. Pray tell then, how RM 600-700k now becomes RM 100 million? Has the law of the multiplier been applied to the engines lost or has the defence minister discovered some lost maths book which Malaysians have not availed themselves to.

Oh- the price of RM 100 million is arrived at with the use of current valuation techniques. How can second hand engines cost RM 100 million? What kind of financial sleight of hand is this?

The defence minister simply cannot give us this kind of cavalier answer. He must on account of national interest agree to the formation of a committee to establish a white paper to uncover the real story behind what we actually lost that amounted to USD million as broadcasted over TV. The contradictory statements as to the amount lost given by the Minister necessitates the formation of such a committee.