All kinds of oddities have been going on with procurement projects organised for the defence sector for years. Even the Competition Council frequently takes an interest in them, said former head of the council, Saeima opposition deputy Skaidrīte Ābrama in an interview to LTV programme Rīta panorāma.
She also said procurement contenders have also complained about oddities in various procurement projects over the years.
«We had received many signals back in the day. There was also one decision on penalties sometime before 2010. This sector has always been very critical, very suspicious when it comes to procurement projects,»
said Ābrama.
She stressed that any information about defence sector’s procuremen projects has always been difficult to access. This is because the Ministry of Defence always hides it with security considerations and specifics of procurement projects.
When asked if someone has any personal interests in such procurement projects, Ābrama said controlling institutions did point out possible violations at one point. «Certain procurement committee members were reassessed and some were removed due to some dishonest activities,» she said, adding that such practice in procurements of the defence sector has long since become a tradition.
The deputy added that the defence sector is very generously funded, which means the amounts of money spent non-transparently may be enormous.
According to her, what the Ministry of Defence is doing now puts national security at risk, and NATO partners are starting to look at Latvia, thinking: «What is going on there?»
As previously reported, the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) has commenced a criminal procedure over the multi-million food procurement organised for Latvia’s National Armed Forces. Publicly available information indicates that the contract was signed by the Provisions Command of National Armed Forces.
The criminal procedure was commenced over three section of the Criminal Law: reporting false information in an income declaration, abusing official power for selfish purposes and disclosing confidential information that is not an official secret.
Currently four people involved in the criminal procedure – two procurement committee members, a company representative and former Minister of Defence Artis Pabriks’ advisor have the rights for defence. None of the people involved in the criminal procedure have been presented with any security measures so far.
At the same time, the head of the procurement committee and now ex-member of the National Alliance Ēriks Ezeriņš and some official of the National Armed Forces have been suspended because of the ongoing scandal.
The Ministry of Defence has also commenced its own internal investigation in regards to this procurement. The ministry has also informed KNAB, the prosecution office and State Audit of this.
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