The Ministry of National Defense yesterday signed contracts with four department store retailers to allow the armed services to purchase lower-cost items at their branches across the country.
The practice, never tried before across the services, is aimed at greatly reducing time for the armed services to acquire items worth less than NT$100,000 each, ranging from daily necessities to hardware for both civilian and military usage.
The program was initially adopted by the navy only but has now been expanded to the army and air force, as well as smaller services such as the logistics command and reserves command. Research institutes such as the Chun Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST) have also participated in the program.
The navy started the practice two years ago on an experimental basis. In the first year, the navy's purchases at contracted retailers was worth only around NT$40 million. But the figure rose to NT$70 million in the second year.
Vice Admiral Chang Wen-ping (張文平), chief of staff of the navy general headquarters, said the practice was the idea of former navy commander-in-chief and incumbent chief of the general staff Admiral Li Chieh (李傑).
"Although other services have now followed in our footsteps in adopting the same practice, we do not feel proud at all. We have yet more to improve," Chang said.
Chang, explaining how the practice is executed, said each unit of the navy that has been included in the program is provided with a shopping card with a NT$100,000 line of credit for each month.
"Each unit can use the card to purchase at any of the four contracted department stores. Every purchase record will be sent by computers of the stores to those of the military that are linked together. No irregularities can happen under this tight monitoring system," he said.
"The greatest benefit of the practice is the reduction of time for the acquisition of items that could be bought easily obtained in the civilian market."
In the past, it was required in the military that even a common item such as paint could be obtained only after tedious paperwork.
As a result, the time for the acquisition of a common item could be as long as 45 days, which caused great inconvenience to the routine operations of a unit.
The navy had reason to become the first service to launch the practice, since most of its units -- namely ships -- are concentrated at one military port or another.
The concentration of the navy's ships makes it possible for the purchase of daily necessities and hardware for civilian and military hardware at shopping malls since most of the military ports are close to city centers.
The same is true for the air force, but not for the army. Most of the army's units are scattered around the country, with most located in the middle of nowhere.
So, although it is the ministry's policy to expand the off-base purchase practice to all the services, not every service is suited for it.
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