April Aswadi – Under pressure from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to halt a wave of crashes involving military aircraft in the past two months, the Defense Ministry has been ordered to conduct an audit of alleged budget shortfalls and a technical inspection of the Armed Forces.
The shoddy safety record has become a national embarrassment, with defense officials saying the budget allocated is sufficient funds to maintain military aircraft.
The latest incident occurred on Friday when an Air Force Puma helicopter crashed during a maintenance flight in Bogor, killing four soldiers and injuring three others. The crash was the fourth such incident involving military aircraft in the past two months.
Yudhoyono's audit and inspection directive was announced after Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono and Armed Forces (TNI) Chief Gen. Djoko Santoso met with the president on Monday.
"We want to achieve zero tolerance for air accidents and we will sign an audit team agreement soon to evaluate the budgets of the ministry, Armed Forces headquarters and each branch of the Armed Forces," Juwono told reporters after the meeting.
Meanwhile, the head of the House of Representatives' defense commission, Yusron Ihza Mahendra, said on Monday that the government should be held accountable for the chain of deadly mishaps. "The repeated accidents are very strange. Someone from the government must be held responsible," Yusron said.
He stopped short of calling for the resignations or firings of top officials, saying such moves were "completely under the government's prerogative."
The root of the problem, he said, is a lack of funds for the maintenance, procurement and modernization of weapons and equipment.
The top-level team is to assemble experts who will inspect and evaluate all technical and management procedures crucial to the maintenance of the country's main weapons systems, as well as assess budgetary priorities.
"The audit team will start working today and will finish by the end of July," Juwono said on Monday.
In reference to Friday's deadly crash, Djoko said that the TNI would investigate the incident.
He said the TNI had also been ordered by the president to investigate the spate of accidents and to evaluate the military's aircraft maintenance and operations capabilities. The promised review and evaluation is to focus on maintenance regulations and procedures, the training of air crews, existing leadership and budgets.
Djoko said the recent accidents were not related to insufficient funds, insisting that military aircraft were well maintained and had an adequate operational budget.
Juwono disagreed, repeating earlier assertions that the budget was insufficient to guarantee quality maintenance, with the shortfall amounting to as much as 50 percent of the TNI's needs.
He cited the Hercules military planes currently in service, which required Rp 1.2 trillion ($118 million) per year to maintain but had a budget allocation of just Rp 500 billion. "Only some of the aircraft can be supported by such an insufficient maintenance budget," Juwono said.