Amir Tejo & Anita Rachman, Surabaya – The Navy has raised doubts about the domestic arms industry's ability to supply the nation's defense forces, saying it remains inefficient and expensive compared to other countries.
Speaking a little over a week after the government moved to bolster the local defense industry by requiring the military and police to purchase weaponry manufactured by state-owned enterprises over the next five years, Rear Admiral Mochammad Jurianto said on Thursday that local manufacturers were unable to supply most of the technology required by the Navy.
Jurianto, the planning assistant to Navy Chief Vice Admiral Agus Suhartono, also questioned why state shipbuilder PT PAL – under an agreement with a South Korean shipbuilder – took two years to build landing platform dock vessels in Indonesia, while the same equipment was built at a lower cost and in less than five months in South Korea.
"It we can get a cheaper product faster, why do we have to choose the expensive one?" Jurianto asked.
PAL, which has long been accused of poor management, was bailed out by the government to the tune of $44 million in August. The company said at the time that it was eying a $243 million contract to construct a missile defense ship for the Navy.
The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has also reported that PAL may have been implicated in "improper corporate actions," including marking-up project costs.
Jurianto also lamented the state of the Navy's "ancient fleet" of 144 war ships. He said only 54 percent were operational, 40 percent were aged under 25 years, 55 percent were between 25 and 50 years old, and the remainder were older than 50.
He did, however, acknowledge that it was "critical" for a country to have the ability to construct its main weaponry systems. "Because, if we use foreign products, then the internal systems are already known by other countries. For instance... we could be jammed," Jurianto said.
He was talking during a seminar on the Theory and Application of Maritime Technology held by the Maritime Technology School at the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) in Surabaya.
Djauhar Manfaat, dean of the maritime school, responded to Jurianto's criticisms by saying there needed to be the political will on behalf of the government to give domestic industries the chance to compete. "Although the prices may be higher, there is a learning process we can benefit from," Djauhar said.
He said that if the government wanted to lower prices, it should guarantee consistency when placing orders. Djauhar also suggested that universities get involved in the research of certain technologies, such as stealth technology for corvettes.
Suntoyo, chairman of the seminar, said that although Indonesia had been left behind the likes of China and South Korea in maritime technology, it had made significant progress in other areas, such as ships used in coastal surveillance.
"Of course, we need to improve our maritime technology and one of the ways is by conducting these kinds of events, which involve elements of the government, industry and end users," he said.
Suntoyo said that the follow up to the event will be a discussion on the need to establish a national ship design center. He said that at the moment, only ITS has one, "but a national center can be established if all elements are committed to this goal."