mrbrown and the case of the six billion ringgit ships

What's hiding inside the hull of this hugely expensive ship?

Malaysia is set to spend RM6 billion (US$1.97 billion) on six new Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV). That's a billion ringgit or US$328 million apiece. For ships meant to deal with illegal fishing and smugglers, not warfare, mind you.

Those must be some real bad-ass smugglers packing state of the art heat if you need billion-ringgit boats to deal with them. Damn the illegal fishermen and their nuclear-powered aircraft carriers! (*shakes fist*)

My first instinct was to think, "The ship toilets come with gold taps ah?" recalling a certain Singapore charity that used to have rather expensive taste in bathroom fixtures.

Critics of the purchase in Malaysia have also expressed doubt about the wisdom of the sale, but the navy chief denies the vessels are costly.

I am sure there are many things on those ships that add to the cost. Not unlike those little Perodua Kancil cars that sport spoilers, sport rims and wings, the OPVs must be pimped -- or as we say here, "zhnged" -- to the max.

What sort of beast does a billion buckaroos buy?

For the money, I think we should expect the OPVs to have ion cannons. Like the ones used in the Battle of Hoth in "The Empire Strikes Back." Heck, I think even a Death Star on each ship.

Or maybe something more down to earth, like the U.S. Navy's new railgun.

Except maybe the order was misinterpreted and they thought it meant building an entire railway station on the ship, which, when combined, allows you to ride from Singapore to Butterworth without going through the new Woodlands Train Checkpoint. (Take that, Singapore!)

Or maybe a few Malaysian naval officers watched the Transformers movies and thought they were real.

"Sir! We can build Transformer ships that become robots! If anyone can build Transformer Robot Ships, Malaysia boleh!"

So my theory is that the KD Kedah and her five other sister vessels are really robots in disguise.

Cue music: "Transformers, robots in disguise! Transformers, cost billions to buy!"

The Proton, OPV and Transformers connection

I am waiting for the day the Royal Malaysian Navy reveals the real names of their OPVs: KD Optimus Proton and KD MegaProton.

Then we will really see where the billions of ringgit went to, like the enhanced air-conditioning (my mother used to drive a Proton Wira and that was its biggest feature), chrome fittings and really fierce sport rims.

Or maybe the new OPVs can submerge and fly.

Speaking of submerge, I certainly hope these vessels work out better than the other big ticket Malaysian naval purchase, the Scorpene submarines.

The Scorpene subs, costing a whopping 3.4 billion ringgit (US$1 billion), had defects that rendered the first delivered Scorpene unfit for diving. As you know, submarines need to be able to dive, or else all you've bought is a floating tube. A very expensive floating tube.

It did not help that the Scorpene company got investigated for corruption.

I hope the new OPVs will not require any "commissions" like the Scorpene subs did. That would certainly drive up costs. You need to have enough money to include things important to a ship, like propellers and a hull.

Maybe all the money is also meant to include maintenance and the oft-forgotten aspect of fighting ship ownership: parking.

How much? For parking?

You see, I come from Singapore, Fatherland of Expensive Parking. I recently had to drive to Resorts World Sentosa to watch a circus (the Voyage de la Vie, if you must know) and noticed that parking was S$7 for the first hour and $2 per subsequent hour … until 7 p.m. Then it becomes a whopping S$8 per entry.

My show ended at 6:30 p.m., and I was determined to hustle my three kids, wife and domestic helper (two separate people here, to clarify) to the car so that our S$13 bill would not become S$21. Like Cinderella running for her carriage before it turns into a pumpkin, we ran to our car, which was parked a good 500 meters away. My oldest daughter even dropped a shoe.

Faith is nine years old with serious autism and doesn't have speech, so we didn't notice the missing shoe until we reached the car. That meant I had to run back to the theater to look for the lone shoe.

Thankfully, it had been found and set aside in case the owner came back for it. I was breathless by the time I made it back to the car, but we got out of there with six minutes to spare. Eight bucks saved.

So if parking our tiny car on a resort island is so expensive, I am sure Offshore Patrol Vessels will cost more to park. In fact, I think an OPV should carry at least a million ringgit worth of parking coupons, just in case it needs to tarry a little longer at a port.

Or maybe Malaysia's government can spend another billion ringgit installing a cashless parking payment system onboard.

Hey, it's national security and what's another billion ringgit, right?