Canada PoliticsDND pays $1 million for submarine part to company gone missing: report
You can add this to the growing list of military procurement screw-ups by the federal government.
The Ottawa Citizen is reporting about a 2008 contract between the Department of National Defence and a European submarine part manufacturer.
According to the report, DND purchased the equipment with a $1 million deposit, hasn't received the product and now "can't find" the company.
Canada signed a deal with Applied Radar and Sonar Technologies in December 2008 for the transportable acoustic range and paid the firm a little more than $1 million out of the total price-tag of $1.3 million. But according to the DND briefing the firm ran into a series of unspecified problems with the equipment.
In June 2012, with the delivery almost three years behind schedule, Public Works requested the company provide evidence as to why the contract should not be terminated. It sent letters to the company’s German office and a Turkish address where the equipment was supposed to be manufactured. But those letters couldn’t be delivered.
The report goes on to say that Canada will now likely enlist the help of an international collection agency.
The full Ottawa Citizen article can be read here.
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There has been a lot of negative press about Canada's procurement problems over the past several years.
They've had trouble procuring military trucks, problems with their second-hand submarines bought from the UK in 1998, delays on the purchase of search and rescue planes and ongoing questions about the cost of our shipbuilding program.
There's also the matter of our Sea King helicopters: As explained by a CBC News report from last month, Sikorsky Aircraft was supposed deliver first replacement Cyclone helicopters in 2008 but it still hasn't happened.
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And let's not forget about the F-35 fiasco and government's "re-set" of that procurement process last year.
With all those problems, maybe we shouldn't be surprised by $1 million pay out to a company that might have gone missing?
(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)
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