Defence tenders use taxpayers as an ATM

With a higher defense budget and a significant increase in the surface fleet of Australia, it seems to be good times for large defense contractor, especially when the Ministry of Navy and Defense manages commercial relations. Latest General Auditor Report About the management of the largest ships of the Royal Australian Navy, Crirase It offers a useful guide as to how defense contractors maximize their profits from Australian taxpayers.

Delivery

Taxpayers paid $ 3.2 billion for the Canberra -Class landing helicopter pouch (LHD) ship built by the UAE, designed by two Navantia, and is expected to maintain $ 1.3 billion more than $ 1.3 billion. The ships came with more than 8,000 defects between 2014-2015. The navy later recommends that it loses the confidence of ships for the favorable state of the sea ”.

A special “Transition and Improvement Program üyle, which cost approximately $ 130 million to correct hundreds of flaws, was established, which still left six“ significant residues lack of significance when the navy finally entered service five years later. Big problems continue to disturb the ships.

However, he did not harm the UAE-then, at that time, he would be the beneficiary of an extraordinary intervention to the purchasing process to add the UAE offer of the Hunter-class opportunity program as a preferred option by the defense secretary at that time. The UAE serves thousands of flaws, but it is not one of the winning contracts.

Unwanted offers lobe

Instead of waiting for the defense to start tenders first, the smart company first enters. Although LHD delivered ships openly, the UAE proposed to defend, as well as protecting the ships as they switched to service.

The defense accepted the proposal without making a suitable process and gave the UAE a $ 215 million contract – which then increased over $ 350 million. In 2022, in contrast to undertaking continuing to maintain the maintenance of the Ships, the US company KBR, who won a contract to control the sustaining process of the ships (much smaller), also made an undesirable offer to expand. his Contract beyond the end of his life. This was accepted by the defense without any appropriate process and CBR received $ 11 million.

Do not make efforts to write tender documents

Defense companies, the only horse in the race, know that they do not have to do anything but the minimum effort. When the UAE made an undesirable proposal for the continuation of the transition, the defense invited them to offer a tender. The document obtained from the UAE was so poor that everyone who evaluated it in the defense thought that it was not compatible, that the UAE did not even listen to what the defense wanted, and that the UAE wanted to önemli important accountability, transactions and risk to the Society of Nations ”. The Defense asked the UAE to re -send the tender. The new still had “important deficiencies ,, but the defense still gave them a contract (the $ 215 million contract mentioned above).

This asked how the Defense wanted Rabid for the French weapon giant Thales and no one else wanted Rebid for the factory contract in 2019 and even to help Thales write a tender request, but he even wanted Thales not to be treated with defense. The department, you predicted, still gave the contract.

Perform the contracts as cheap and badly as possible

The idea that the UAE would be good as a care and maintenance provider was based on the fact that LHD ships built them as they started service. However, this did not take into account how bad the UAE would be: Later, a study found that the performance of the UAE was characterized by “insufficient and insufficient talented resources; the supply of parts required for external maintenance periods and the lack of planning for the use of defense systems”. The UAE said that none of this was his fault – his performance was “negatively affected by the issues that continued from the acquisition stage that can be attributed to the performance of the other parties”. He then complains about how Anao depicted in the audit and threatens it indefinitely: “If these issues are not corrected in the final report, they may be unjustly prejudiced for the commercial interests of these UAE systems.”

Similarly, NSM (now Babcock), who won the tender for maintenance and maintenance services after the end of the UAE’s contract ended, claimed that his activities could not give or did not have or did not have tasks for months. A later investigation found that seven main criteria for NSM’s contract failed against four.

In both cases, the navy and/or KBR actually took the laxity themselves rather than forcing UAE or NSM to address performance deficiencies. Defense could reduce payments to contractors, but he could have chosen not; In the case of NSM, the defense paid money for the discovered job that was actually wrong.

Remember: Defense will always look at friends

Thales is a rooted player in the Australian Defense Agreement. Last year, the General Auditor announced the extreme close relations between Defense and Thales on defense factories management last year, and the Minister of Defense Richard Marles replied, praising Tales as an important part of the Australian defense industry.

When the defense moved to a different model for the entire surface fleet in a process starting from 2020, Thales offered the role of Eastern role, the regional care provider, which would be more than $ 3 billion. The defense decided to ignore the role of Thales as a subcontractor in Taipan helicopter collapse and faced a serious accusation under it Occupational Health and Safety Law.

However, after the department went further to help Thales – after he told rifles that eight election criteria had the same weight, he changed the idea of ​​defense and decided that the cost criteria would be the most important, and later made the cost of the bids for the advantages kept on Tales, which were equal to Four of the other third criteria. Although Thales did not even provide the defense cost, he won the contract and began to receive payment last year.

Perhaps it would be more efficient to transfer the taxpayer money to these companies without all the bureaucracy with him? If you are a large enough defense contractor, the taxpayer model as ATM already seems to be available.