Corruption in the General Staff of Greece – a deputy’s request for the purchase of American military equipment for 1.3 billion euros

Antonis Milonakis, MP from the opposition party Ελληνικής Λύσης, raised critical questions over an attempt to allocate 1.3 billion euros of Greek taxpayer money for Sikorsky-Lockheed transport helicopters.

“At a time when the program of the promising transport helicopter NH-90 is systematically sabotaged, for which 700 million euros have already been paid, and only 15 out of 20 (!) have been received due to the fact that the ND government and C. Floros did not purchase spare parts in 2019, today only one is flying,” Antonis Milonakis, MP from the opposition party Ελληνικής Λύσης (Greek Solution), emphasizes.

At the same time, as the deputy states, most of the NH-90 are “in warehouses» completely unused or with minimal flying time, and under the contract, five morewhich make up a transport detachment capable of transporting an entire battalion along one route.

Note that Franco-German NH-90s have twice the transport capacity of US UH-60s. However, the Chief of the General Staff (A/GETHA) K. Floros comes and imposes on us the purchase of 24 + 11 (initially they said 48) helicopters.

The representative of Blackhawk is the Aeroservice company D. Daphne, in respect of which the question was raised about the connection between the purchase of MH-60R anti-submarine helicopters promoted by the same company with the turnover of money that was invested in real estate, and much more.

This is stated in the official newsletter of the national intelligence service ΕΥΠbased on wiretaps signed by six ΕΥΠ employees and the secret service prosecutor, based on conversations recorded by “Target 518C”, which corresponded to the Chief of the General Staff of the Greek Armed Forces (A / GETHA) Konstantinos Floros.

the whole question with the number of deputy request AP3235/11.4.2023 is:

TO: Minister of National Defence.
TOPIC: “Delivery of Blackhawk helicopters”.

Mr. Minister!

As already known, the Greek government has sent a letter of request (LoR) to the US services for the purchase of twenty-four (24) new-build UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters for a total of 1.2 billion euros, with the possibility of acquiring another eleven (11).

In fact, the speed of the LoR submission may give us a strange feeling, since it follows from the publications that although the GDAEE permission by the competent minister was for twenty-four plus eleven (24 + 11) helicopters, in some inexplicable way, an additional option was added to the LoR provision to send another 25 helicopters.

It should be noted that the intentions of the ministry nothing is yet known about the involvement of the domestic industry in the supply under consideration.

The acquisition of these helicopters raises many questions at a time when the greek army did not receive all helicopters of the same type category “NH-90”, which were ordered and paid for back in the early 2000s. In fact, for specific helicopters, the situation is dramatic, since fifteen (15) out of twenty (20) have been received while the next support (FOS) contract is still under negotiation.

It should be noted that FOS contract approved by Parliament on October 21, 2021 and since then deprives the Greek army of a valuable contribution in the form of these helicopters. In addition, CH-47 Chinook support also appears to be moving slowly. pace, with all the ensuing consequences for the operational use of equipment of this type. Finally, despite the intention declared by the ministry to support domestic industry, the amounts allocated to it through these purchases, negligible.

Based on the foregoing ministers are asked:

1. What stage is the FOS contract for NH-90 helicopters at and why is it still not signed?
2. What actions have been taken by the Ministry to promote the FOS contract for helicopters “NH-90”, which was ratified by the Greek Parliament 1.5 years ago?
3. “HX-90” is still in development ΓΕΣ or ΓΕΕΘΑ intentionally sell the helicopters in question to reduce duplication?
4. Why were there no open international tenders through which the country would have received great benefits, but instead an ENT was sent for “Sikorsky”?
5. Is it true that the Ministry and the relevant headquarters instructed the Air Force not invite another competing European company under an excuse for uniformity?
6. Is the participation of the domestic military-industrial complex in the procurement Blackhawk, what €1.2 billion will be spent on and what works will be assigned to it?

MP ANTONIS MILONAKIS”.

Source link