The defense committee of the legislature yesterday agreed to unfreeze a NT$2 billion budget for the army's purchase of a domestically developed tactical radio communication system that it had shelved for more than one year.
The agreement was given after lawmakers on the committee were convinced by the army that the system is both suitable and reliable.
In Taoyuan yesterday morning, the army launched a field test of the system at the request of the defense committee. The test results were satisfactory to all defense committee lawmakers witnessing the whole process, the army said.
After the demonstration, the lawmakers went back to Taipei to hold a closed-door meeting at the legislature to discuss whether they should support the purchase of the system.
After debating for more than two hours, the lawmakers reached a consensus on releasing the NT$2 billion budget needed for the project.
That move means that the CS/PRC-37A tactical radio communication system, which is an automatic frequency-hopping system developed by the military's Chun Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST), can go into production to fill orders from the military -- mainly the army.
The CS/PRC-37A purchase case, known as the "Chien Kuo" project, was initially boycotted by the lawmakers because it was considered to be a substandard product, especially compared to similar systems that have been developed by other countries.
An anonymous army official, who is well-informed about the matter, said that the CS/PRC-37A was indeed not a very good choice from the very beginning.
"We can opt to buy a better system from abroad. But if we do make that choice, what can we contribute to the development of the local defense industry?" the official said.
"The CSIST has been criticized for alleged attempts to monopolize the military communications market via the Chien Kuo project. It is now willing to give ground and let civilian communications companies share the pie," the army official said.
"It is apparently one of the major reasons that lawmakers on the defense committee have decided to support the project," he said.
In addition to the compromise it made yesterday, the CSIST has tried very hard to upgrade the performance of the CS/PRC-37A system over the past year.
The system was initially not very fast in its frequency hopping. But in yesterday's field test, it showed it could change frequencies fast enough to meet the demands of some lawmakers who played a leading role in the shelving of the budget for the Chien Kuo project.
However, the system's performance has yet to improve in several other areas; which was the reason why the defense committee -- though releasing the budget for the case yesterday -- still insists that the CSIST has to complete the needed improvements in time.
Otherwise, the committee warned, some parts of the budget will be frozen again.
The CS/PRC-37A system is scheduled to replace the aging AN/PRC-77 system that the army has used for several decades.
Around 20,000 sets of the new system are to be produced for the army, at a cost of around NT$15 billion.
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