By a Staff Reporter
IN THE latest twist on the procurement of helicopters for the military and the police, the government confirmed yesterday it was scrapping the tenders process and initiating another one “no later than 12 months from now”.
Earlier this week the Cabinet decided to terminate the tenders competition for the purchase of three “multiple-use choppers”, effectively bringing to an end this phase of an affair that has been in the news for as long as memory serves.
To date there have been at least another two such cancellations, as the previous administration was rocked by allegations of discrepancies in the tenders process that allegedly favoured some bidders over others. The Clerides government finally decided to purchase three Bell choppers, to be used in fire fighting, coastal surveillance, search and rescue operations and transport of military personnel.
Justice Minister Doros Theodorou yesterday defended the new government’s decision to postpone purchasing additional choppers, saying “right now, there is no reason whatsoever to do that”. Theodorou argued that the two main reasons for buying the choppers had ceased to exist.
“First, over the past couple of years we have adopted the practice of renting helicopters for fire fighting, and I might add that this method turns out to be less expensive; second, quite simply the National Guard now has no need for any additional personnel carriers.”
According to Theodorou, buying the helicopters would cost “no less than £20 million,” while the cost of renting for the summer months, when the fire hazard is especially high, works out to £1.1 million a year.
“Things have changed since the past administration’s decision to buy the Bell helicopters, so it is no longer necessary to maintain that tenders process,” said Theodorou.
The National Guard’s air transport needs are currently being serviced by Russian MI-35 gunships; Theodorou said these were “more than enough for the time being”.
Although pledging that the government was already planning to initiate another competition over the next year, Theodorou did not go into specifics. And for his part, Defence Minister Koullis Mavronikolas urged the media not to provide gratuitous coverage to national security matters.
While the Defence Minister stressed that the National Guard was not being neglected, he did not explain why the military did not need the helicopters any more.
Criticism of the government’s decision was swift, as Mavronikolas’ predecessor Socrates Hasikos wondered why “the need for personnel-carrying helicopters has suddenly ceased to exist?”
“The previous administration based its decision to purchase the helicopters purely on operational, not political criteria,” added Hasikos.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
