Surely the answer to the question in the headline isn’t Benny. I’m not that old, but it’s an earworm of a song I stumbled across as a kid, and it’s been lodged in my head ever since.
It’s been a while since I last touched on defence procurement as the past few issues were knee-deep in tech (no pun intended). So, today I’ll wade back into that space.
For those in my startup/VC readership, while digging through notes I came across an interesting detail.
Anne Cheng Heng Fun — the Singaporean investor exposed last year by Tech in Asia (TIA) for faking her academic credentials — was, at one point, a minority shareholder in a Malaysian VC.
Two interesting midweek reads. Let’s dive in.
Also, in case you missed Sunday’s newsletter with a scoop on BigPay, I’ve got you covered right here 👇🏾
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It all began with a reprimand from Malaysia’s king, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, on Saturday over what he called “flying coffins.”
The Defence Ministry had been looking to procure second-hand Black Hawk helicopters that were more than 30 years old.
This drew the ire of the monarch, who is also the supreme commander of the Malaysian armed forces (MAF).
He warned against repeating past blunders such as the Skyhawk deal of the 1980s1, and criticised the role of agents and middlemen in procurement for inflating costs.
In the immediate aftermath, the armed forces scrapped the deal, citing the king’s remarks.
The ministry, meanwhile, said it would shift towards more government-to-government contracts to cut out intermediaries.
All well and good. Or is it?