Anwar has Malaysia’s murky defence deals in his sights. Can he plug the leaks and ‘rebuild credibility’?

Middlemen have long made Malaysia’s defence procurement ‘messy, opaque and corrupt’, analysts say. But getting rid of them is only half the battle

Experts warn Malaysia still lacks a coherent defence strategy to manage emerging sea, air and cyber threats in an increasingly complex neighbourhood

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Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has vowed to clean up the Malaysia’s notoriously murky defence procurement processes. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 8:30am, 5 Mar 2023

A decade since Sharuddin Omar launched a campaign to raise pensions and benefits for tens of thousands of Malaysia’s former servicemen, he says many remain in poverty, too old for the job market and living in poor conditions on meagre monthly allowances. Many of the older retired servicemen survive on as little as 1,000 ringgit (US$223) a month.

In his 2023 budget, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim sought to soothe some of the pain by promising to upskill veterans for the job market.

“These are a group of people who sacrificed for the country and now they are really struggling,” said Sharuddin, who heads the Veterans’ Association of Malaysian Armed Forces. “How can they live in this situation?”

Presenting the budget to parliament last week, Anwar set aside 17.7 billion ringgit (nearly US$4 billion) for the defence sector overall, a marginal increase from the 16.4 billion ringgit budgeted for 2022.

Malaysian soldiers march in formation during Independence Day celebrations last year in Kuala Lumpur. Many of Malaysia’s military veterans are “really in difficulty”, advocates say. Photo: AP

The bulk of this year’s purse is expected to go to maintenance and the upkeep of existing assets.

But the budget did not outline any strategic plans or new asset procurements – although the armed forces did sign a US$920 million deal last month for 18 Korean FA-50s to replace its ageing fleet of trainer and light-combat aircraft.