‘SUCCESS OF LIMA DUE TO ALL INVOLVED’
Mohamad says he will strive to make air show even better
REFUSING to take the credit for the success of the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (Lima) 2019, Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu said the exhibition owed everything to all involved.
“Ministers will come and go, but the success of the show is the success of all parties,” he said, naming all these parties individually.
Mohamad said the experience of being a part of Lima for the first time as the defence minister was something out of the ordinary, adding that he would strive to make the show even better in future.
On his statement that a new segment — aerospace technology — would be added to Lima 2021, he said this was because
Malaysian companies had proven their capabilities in this year’s edition of the exhibition.
“As the prime minister said (recently), Malaysians are leading the way in cyberspace and aerospace technology. I will be including this in the Defence White Paper (DWP, that is being drawn up by the ministry),” Mohamad said during a press conference yesterday at the Mahsuri International Exhibition Centre on the final day of Lima.
Mohamad said he had been shown how lasers on a drone can be used to cut down bunches of oil palm fruits.
“This is among the things that we can be proud of. Malaysians of various races, including Bumiputeras... I see so many Bumiputeras who are engineers of international standard.
“We will emphasise this in the DWP. We have Stride (Science and Technology Research Institute for Defence), we have UPNM (National Defence University) and we have various companies and research institutes which can work together with the Defence Ministry.”
Mohamad said Malaysian companies had indeed come a long way since the inaugural Lima in 1991.
“Then, there was only one local exhibitor, but now we have more than 200 Malaysian companies at the show.”
Mohamad said there were more than 42,000 trade visitors on the first three days of Lima 2019, adding that the first day of public viewing on Friday saw more than 100,000 people flocking to the show.
“With today’s (Saturday’s) numbers, it will likely be more than 150,000 visitors.”
Mohamad also set the record straight on the financial status of the Armed Forces Superannuation Fund Board (LTAT) and blamed the previous government administration for misleading the public with the announcements.
He said the board’s accounts did not reflect its true state, stopping short of saying that the previous government had “cooked the books”.
He said former auditor general Tan Sri Ambrin Buang and his team members were combing through the accounts, adding that this may take some time (Ambrin chairs the Governance, Procurement and Finance Investigating Committee set up by Putrajaya in May last year).
“We have to thoroughly audit the accounts. When we make the announcement, you will see how the announcements made (by the previous government) before this, did not tally with internal or external audits.”
Mohamad said this when commenting on rumblings from LTAT that the board had yet to announce dividends to be paid out this year.
He said there would be some delay on the announcement of dividends due to the ongoing investigation.
“We will need some time before we can present (the findings of the investigation),” he said.
The investigation committee was reported to have found irregularities in the LTAT accounts, allegedly indicating that the previous government had interfered with the accounts.
Among the issues was a RM550 million payment involving the Automated Enforcement System for speed traps when evaluation conducted on the system placed its value at only RM250 million.
Earlier this month, the Defence Ministry lodged a report to Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on the matter.