Corvette contract to go ahead despite opposition: Navy

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite opposition from the Office of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and the National Planning Agency (Bappenas), the Navy will go ahead with its plan to buy two corvettes from a Dutch shipyard company, Navy chief Admiral Bernard Kent Sondakh has said.

"We won't go back on it -- the contract has been signed. We don't have to review it -- they should," Sondakh, his voice rising with emotion, said on Wednesday.

He said the Navy would postpone the purchase if the government could not afford it, asserting that it would not cancel the contract under any circumstances.

"We need it. It will affect our defense capability. We don't even have a missile," Sondakh said.

It has been become public knowledge that the Indonesian Military (TNI) suffers from a severe lack of military equipment.

Sondakh signed on Jan. 6 a 270.3 million euro contract with Dutch shipyard Royal Schelde. He was apparently unaware that Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti had sent a letter to the defense ministry asking for a review of the plan to buy the corvettes using an export credit facility.

The Navy had earlier suggested that it would use half of the US$50 million export credit facility to buy the two corvettes despite the government's decision to allocate all of the funds to the purchase of several vessels for landing personnel (LPDs).

According to military analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Ikrar Nusa Bhakti the dispute was a sign for the House of Representatives and the People's Consultative Assembly to review the unhealthy state of relations between the defense ministry and the TNI.

"This case clearly shows the same mistake being made by TNI, which is bypassing the defense ministry in the procurement of military equipment," he told The Jakarta Post.

The purchase of military equipment directly by TNI, instead of the defense ministry, is a violation of Law No. 3/2002 on national defense, Ikrar said.

The law stipulates that the military is a state institution, which is under the authority of the defense ministry. It is the defense ministry that has the authority to purchase military equipment.

"It is OK if the TNI suggests to the defense ministry the equipment needed the most. But, it is the defense ministry that must make the purchase," he said.

Ikrar saw the corvette dispute as similar to the controversial purchase of four Sukhoi jet fighters from Russia last year, which prompted legislators to set up a special inquiry into the case.

The Sukhoi purchase was also made without the approval of the defense ministry.

The TNI often bypassed the defense ministry when making deals on military equipment, Ikrar said, particularly during the tenure of Mahfud MD and Matori Abdul Djalil, both of whom are civilians.

The military considered that the two civilian defense ministers had insufficient knowledge of military affairs, he said. This situation was different when Juwono Sudarsono, a noted military analyst who was formerly deputy governor of the National Resilience Institute (Lemhanas), was appointed defense minister.

"The military respected him because they considered Juwono knew military affairs well. What I am trying to say is, the government must be able to put the right person in the position in a bid to improve relations between the TNI and the defense ministry," Ikrar said.

Currently, the defense ministry has been left without a minister since Matori suffered a stroke seven months ago. President Megawati Soekarnoputri has refused to replace him and instead asked already-busy Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to fill in for him on a temporary basis.