Military equipment open to tender
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government will open a tender for the supply of light military equipment and for the upgrading and maintenance of existing war machines, Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono said.
He said the tender would be opened once the ministry's Directorate General of Defense System Planning had completed its evaluation of proposals from the Indonesian Military (TNI).
"The ministry will open the tender process after it completes the evaluation of the incoming proposals. I cannot give a definite time for the tender, but it should be conducted this year," Juwono told The Jakarta Post recently.
He said the TNI had submitted a number of proposals for upgrading and maintaining existing equipment and procuring new equipment, worth a total of Rp 1.4 trillion (some US$146 million).
The projects include the maintenance and upgrading of the country's military cargo planes, warships and submarines, he said.
According to Juwono, several of the proposals that had been approved by the ministry included the upgrade and maintenance of the German-made Cakra submarine. This project was given to South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co. Ltd.
The project is worth between US$25 and $30 million and is expected to be completed within the next six months. The type of 209 Cakra submarine in Indonesia's fleet was made in the 1970s by the German shipyard Howaldtswerke.
With the upgrade work, the submarine is expected to be able to adopt the military technology of the 1990s.
At present, Indonesia only has two submarines. Aside from the Cakra submarine, it also operates a Nanggala submarine. The two subs were purchased from Germany in 1981 during the rule of president Soeharto.
The Ministry of Defense also hopes to upgrade the capability of the Nanggala submarine next year once the ongoing upgrade of the Cakra submarine has been completed.
In this year's state budget, the government has allocated Rp 23.3 trillion (about $2.4 billion) for military spending, mostly for repairing and modernizing TNI's military equipment.
Juwono previously said that with limited funding, the TNI was unlikely to purchase new arms in the next two years, but might start making purchases again in 2007 if the economy continues to strengthen.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, needs a strong military force not only to deal with threats at home, such as separatist movements, but also to protect its borders.
The defense budget of the world's fourth most populous country is considered very low, even compared to smaller neighboring countries such as Thailand and Malaysia.
The TNI's equipment has been steadily deteriorating as a result of the 13-year arms embargo imposed by the United States in response to rights violations in East Timor.
The situation was exacerbated by the Asian financial crisis that struck in late 1997.