Despite facing heavy pressure to ramp up military spending, the Department of National Defence (DND) has slow-rolled one of the least complex of its vehicle replacement programs.
The light utility vehicle program has been on the books for several years. Its purpose is to update the military’s fleet of two-decade-old Afghan war-era Mercedes G-Wagons and civilian-grade utility vehicles, such as pickups and SUVs.
The light utility vehicle program isn’t as high-tech as some other military procurement projects — but it’s still a perfect example of how a procurement system petrified of making mistakes can take a very long time to get anything done, said Steve Saideman, a defence expert at Carleton University.
“We’d rather have no corruption and slow purchases rather than [moving] fast and [accepting] more risk of making mistakes,” he said.
instead of a long complicated process to pre-empt corruption, just have an automatic and detailed post-award review for corruption. Corruption discovered in the review is referred for criminal prosecution.
After the first 500 or so corporate CEOs and executives are jailed, the rest will get the point. Offer your best price, compete with your competitors, sell your offer on its merits in the open bid, and stay away from the bid evaluators and other potential or actual bidders.
Uh… I’m fine with this. Look at the US to see what no oversight gets you - if it takes longer and we waste less money that’s alright.
If only we wasted less money. Every item procured is late and costs more than anticipated.
Look at the new AOPs that Irving is fumbling though making. They’re delivered with massive deficiencies, can’t do half of what was on the contract, and somehow are out of warranty so Irving won’t pay for the repairs? Seems reasonable.
Irving should be banned from bidding on any Canadian contracts ever again.
And before the nationalists jump in, I don’t gaf if they’re the only Canadian company capable of jobs like this. If they can’t do it right they can listen to Al.
One could argue that they aren’t capable of these types of jobs due to the end product being a fucking half billion dollar joke a piece.
Yup. The whole Irving empire is just one big cesspool that should be broken up.
More significantly, the estimated cost of the program has risen to somewhere between $750 million and $1 billion, from an initial projection of $499 million.
There are many things wrong with how the procurement process works in Canada. Most of them are in Ottawa.
Civilian oversight is necessary, but moving at a snails pace “to prevent corruption” is a fucking joke.
There can’t be any corruption in the process if the process doesn’t move! taps forehead
Can’t we just order a fleet of toyota hiluxes with the gold card down at the local toyota dealership?
