KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 ― The government has renewed two contracts for the maintenance of its Scorpene class submarines until 2017 for a combined cost of RM271.2 million, the Defence Ministry said today.
In a written parliamentary answer to Dungun MP Wan Hasan Mohd Ramli, the ministry said that the In-Service Support (ISS) contracts for the two submarines has been extended until May 2017, for a cost of €24.982 million (RM110.73 million) and RM161.222 million respectively.
This would bring the total maintenance costs for the two submarines to RM1.65 billion since 2009.
The government previously spent RM1.38 billion for a six-year contract to maintain both submarines via ISS, a contract which expired in November last year.
The Defence Ministry also said that the submarines, named KD Tunku Abdul Rahman and KD Tun Razak respectively, did not take part in the underwater search for the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search, missing since March 2014, because they were “not suitable” for a search-and-rescue operation.
“The sonar in the submarine was not designed to conduct searches in the sea bed. It is more suitable for moving objects above the surface of the water,” the ministry said in the statement.
