FINANCE Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz must respond to allegations of the government purchasing weapons worth up to RM854 million through direct negotiations, Fahmi Fadzil said.

“Claims of a RM854 million direct negotiation deal, at a time when we are uncovering all sorts of problems, on top of the littoral combat ships (LCS) scandal (a project also awarded through direct negotiation), is very worrying,” the PKR information chief said in a Facebook post today.

The Lembah Pantai MP also said that if the allegations made by political observer Zaharin Mohd Yasin are indeed true, then he as an MP has much reason to be worried.

Zaharin had earlier uploaded on his Facebook page an image of what appears to be a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) regarding procurement of weapons worth an estimated RM854,345,900.

It was stated in the letter that the finance minister had approved the purchase through direct negotiation.

This comes just after a week the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) released its report on the troubled LCS project.

The report disclosed that the committee had had nine proceedings on the project beginning November 18, 2020, and the last one was held on March 8 this year, where several witnesses were called to give their statements.

PAC investigations had found that the contract was awarded to Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd (BNS) via direct negotiation, with the government paying RM6.08 billion to the shipbuilder. However, not even one ship has been delivered to date.

According to the original schedule, five ships should have been completed and handed over to the Royal Malaysian Navy by August 2022.

The project begun during the Najib Razak administration, when Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was defence minister.

Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob gave his assurance that the case’s investigation and forensic audit reports would be made public. – August 14, 2022.