The defense ministry is pushing to centralize the arms procurement process by giving the Joints Chiefs of Staff (JCS) the authority to assess the military equipment needed for each of the three military branches, officials said Thursday.
Currently, each chief of the Army, Navy and Air Force separately assesses how much equipment exists and what will be needed for their own forces to conduct operations, with those decision reviewed and mediated by the JCS, which oversees the operations of all three branches.
Once the assessments are made, the state arms procurement agency, an independent organization, selects contractors and buys military equipment that fits the required operational capability (ROC) with approval from the parliament.
To simplify this complicated decision-making process, the ministry will submit a revision bill to integrate the procurement procedure under the control of the JCS, officials said.
"The current procurement decision is a multi-step process, which is time-consuming and inefficient," a senior ministry official said. "(The ministry) will revise the decision process to make the JCS assess how much equipment is required for operations if each force of the three branches assesses its needs for military equipment."
Officials say they aim to enforce the new ordinance in January next year, once it is passed by the Cabinet. (Yonhap)