Last two warships to arrive

JAKARTA: The last two of 39 warships that Indonesia ordered in 1994 from Germany will arrive here in September, Antara reported yesterday.

First Marshall Freddy Numberi, in charge of the purchase, sent off the two ships from the Technische Marine Schule port in Neustadts on Friday.

The corvettes have been renovated and equipped with modern arms. They were renamed KRI Silas Parepare-387 and KRI Teuku Umar-385. Their crews have been given two months of training at the Peene Werft dock, Wolgast.

The trip to Jakarta will take 53 days and make numerous stopovers, including Brest in France, Malaga in Spain, Genoa in Italy, Port Said in Egypt, and Karachi, Pakistan.

The purchase of the 39 warships, all from the former East German fleet, was agreed to in 1994. It consists of 16 Parchim corvettes, nine Condor mine sweepers and 14 Frosch tank landers, each with a price tag of between US$10 million and US$12.7 million.

Though it appeared to be a bargain at first, the purchase became controversial when it transpired that the acquisition was to cost over US$1 billion after factoring in the cost of renovating and retrofitting the ships as well as building new bases for the armada. The government finally set a ceiling of $482 million for the project and scaled back heavily on additional expenses. (swe)