Originally posted by Slee981:
Well... Refering to this Budget Crunch Issues, last heard from some senior commanders that our Military Expenses has never being reduced. However due to the 9-11 incident, a portion of the "pie" had been cut and used to fund those Anti-terroism activities and research.
However, one thing that I cannot tolerate is the way the senior management used the money. One very good example is the SAF Meals Caterer, SFI. Imagine that SAF actually have to pay up to $5 a day for a meal which I can get in the canteen in less than $3 (some more the canteen food taste better.)
Yup,quite right abt that, $5 per meal!!!!
Since it is a quarantee biz, their profit margin should actually go down lower. Maybe this is one way the govt is subsidising ST!!!
And abt the 911, nowaday units are recall back for POI duty, the govt are employing some very expensive "security guards".
Some of these are degree holder or biz men which make them the world most expensive guards !!!!!
But I believe the main reason why we are tightnening our belts is becos we are at moment getting some of the most expensive acquistion since the early years of SAF in this decade alone.
For next few years, we are getting abt 20 F16 a/c, 12 Apaches, 6 Delta frigates, more Primus SPH, maybe 10-20 NGF a/c, new batch of Helo including naval version to replace our aging UH-1H, & maybe even the the new light tanks.
Quite a lot of big tickets acquistion.
That is only some known acquisition, perhap many unknown ones.
And we are also talking abt revolutionising our entire army into a truly network outfits.
As the matter of fact, the budget did not reduce for this FY year due to economical situation but actually increase as told by Teo Chee Hean, therefore belt tightening is more due to above rather than just current economical situation.