The air force is seeking a NT$5.7 billion (US$197.8 million) increase in military equipment maintenance and repair funds for the next fiscal year compared with this year, which was prompted by the number of flights in response to Chinese incursions into the nation’s air defense identification zones (ADIZs).
While two recent incidents — an F-5E jet crash on Oct. 29 and a F-16 jet crash on Tuesday — were not directly linked to the increased Chinese incursions over the past year, air force officials yesterday told lawmakers that Chinese belligerence has increased the mental pressure on pilots and directly contributed to the rise in maintenance overhead.
During a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee to review the Ministry of National Defense’s budget, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said that air force maintenance costs have gone over budget every year since 2017, and in 2018, they exceeded funding ceiling by 19.9 percent.
As of yesterday, 99.7 percent of the current fiscal year’s maintenance funding has been used, so he asked if the additional NT$5.7 billion allocated next year would be enough.
Air Force Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Huang Chih-wei (黃志偉) said the maintenance roster is planned two years in advance and unexpected incidents — such as an increase in Chinese incursions — tend to drive up expenditure, and accounted for the increase in funding requested for the next fiscal year.
The air force would investigate ways to improve the situation, but in the meantime, a portion of the requested funds would go toward implementing structural changes for planes and to purchase spare parts, he said.
This would allow the air force to be more precise when determining the maximum service life of aircraft and help prevent further accidents, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) asked why next year’s maintenance budget for equipment under military units totaled NT$27 billion, while that for the Aerospace Industrial Development Corp-built AT-3 would drop by 40 percent from this year’s budget.
The committee decided to freeze NT$100 million of the air force’s budget request, which would be released by legislative approval upon requests from the air force.
It said such requests should be accompanied by a report detailing the spending.
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