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Czech Republic: Czech Army Buys Equipment For Eight Billion Without Tender
Publish Date : 23-Feb-2010
The Czech military has bought arms, vehicles and aircraft for eight billion crowns in total without tenders in the past four years. The MPI Group company owned by, a friend of Defence Minister Martin Bartak, has supplied the military with arms and ammunition for almost one billion crowns.
Suspicious army contracts have been recently in focus mainly in connection with the purchase of the Pandur armoured personnel carriers (APC) from the Austrian Steyr company that was allegedly accompanied by corruption. Czech military acquired equipment worth six billion crowns in 2007-2008 without tenders, including the Iveco and Dingo light armoured vehicles for 4.75 billion crowns.
The company supplied two Israeli Skylark Skylark unmanned reconnaissance planes for 50 million crowns to the military last autumn and 15 German-made Dingo vehicles for 0.5 billion crowns in 2008. Most of the contracts between MPI Group and the military were signed only after Bartak assumed the post at the Defence Ministry working there first as deputy defence minister.
The price of the Pandur APCs that the military finally bought for over 14 billion crowns would probably increase by tens of millions. The military plans to deploy several Pandurs in the mission in Afghanistan and send some others to Kosovo. The APCs will have to be equipped with stronger protective devices against grenades and with some electronic systems for the mission conditions.
