Purchase of Defence Equipment is a Sham

Can our country continue to sustain wanton waste in the purchase of defence equipment which for the most part have little relevance to our national defence?The whole matter of defence equipment purchase seems to be done in an ad hoc manner with no proper due diligence carried out to determine the type and quality necessary for a modern defence system that will not only act as a deterrent but would also provide a sustainable level of defence that will ensure protection of our national sovereignty through the 21st century and beyond.
A few months ago our DPM, and Defence Minister was in U.K to sign an agreement for the purchase of Submarines.Purchasing submarines is the easy part but do we have the manpower, the facilities for such state of the art equipment to be part of our defence arsenal?Many of our previous purchases have ended in the junk yards and hopefully this purchase will not be the next statistic.
Then we had another deal with the Russians for the purchase of fighter planes.The deal was sealed with the addition of a Malaysian astronaut thrown in as an added incentive .Agro- based Industry ministry Parliamentary secretary Rohani Abdul Karim naively went on to say that 'the programme to send a Malaysian into space will not cost a single sen as it is part of an offset arrangement for the purchase of Russian military aircraft'.This of course is not true. It has now been established that it will cost us approximately $95 million to send our astronaut to space so that he can indulge in the children's game of Batu seremban and to experiment the effects of preparing teh tarik in outer space.
Finally, this week we were told that the defence dept has purchased 8 Italian fighter planes for a cost of $410 million.The question is how do we justify the purchase of three different types of defence equipment to blend into our defence strategy?The maintenance of these different types of equipment will pose problems in spare parts and manpower skills in ensuring our fighter planes are in tip top condition.Frankly I am beginning to question the wisdom of purchasing all those equipments which for obvious reason will end up as scrap in the metal junkyard.