The nature of threats to Malaysia's security is classified as a state secret and this makes it difficult to justify the nation's defence expenditure, lamented a retired army officer.

NONE"What are the threats that we are facing and what is the budget we are spending?

"But whatever I say, even though I am no longer in the service, I can be hauled up under the Official Secrets Act (OSA)," said former Armoured Corps director, Col (Rtd) Kamal Omar (right).

"If you try to get it from me, I would say I don't know. So that is the danger, we do not know.

"Why do we have this big amount of money to spend on defence? For what?"

He was speaking as a guest at a press conference organised by Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) today regarding its report about corruption in defence expenditure.

NONEAnother retired officer, Major (Rtd) Roznie Hashim (left), also pointed out that there is a defence pact between Malaysia and neighbouring countries, which leaves Malaysia with no military threats.

“Who is our enemy? If we say it is Singapore, we have a defence pact! We have an Asean Defence Pact! We have the pact signed between Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, and the Philippines. Where can we go wrong?

“So who is our enemy? I’m a soldier, if you ask me, I don’t know... As a soldier, I served in the 1970s for you, but you are not going to give bad equipment, would you, now?” said the former infantry officer and TI-M exco member, while Kamal added that Malaysia’s armed forces are only likely to face pirates and drug smugglers.

Kamal also noted that Malaysia has a large standing army, but as a maritime nation with a long coastline and since the communist insurgency has long passed, it should be investing in its navy and air force instead.

NONEIn addition, he also raised questions about the procurement of defence equipment, which is also classified information.

However, he said this should not be the case as the specifications for military equipment are widely available from defence journals, except the prices, and it is only appropriate to classify how the said equipment would be used.

“The prices that would be published in the media are usually the total price, so there won’t be a big hoo-hah until another country purchases the same equipment at a lower price. Then there will be a question mark. Otherwise it will not arise.

“So the thing is how did the price come up so high? There can be a lot of things that can go into it. They would say, ‘No, this is a transfer of technology’.

“I hate that word, actually. What sort of equipment involves transfer of technology? Show me what transfer of technology. You buy an old main battle tank from Poland; transfer of technology? You must be joking,” he said.

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