Economy Minister Radu Miruta said on Sunday, referring to the situation at Avioane Craiova, that „a fool met a smart man” there in the context of the state-owned company being involved in a „very damaging” contract.
The contract concerned the delivery of aircraft for the training of F-16 pilots.
„At Avioane Craiova, let me say it like in the Oltenia region, a fool met a smart man. The fool was the state, Avioane Craiova, the smart man was a private company. Avioane Craiova was involved in a very damaging contract for it, for which someone had to pay. It made a contract with the Romanian Army and the contract with the Army states that ‘if you are not able to deliver what you promised, you must pay penalties, about 30 million euros’. For Avioane Craiova to deliver what it was obligated to under the contract, it depended on a private company. If that private company failed to deliver what it was supposed to, so that it could hand over to the Romanian Army, it was fined about 10,000 euros. And what do you think happened? The company didn’t deliver,” the minister said on Antena 3 CNN private television station.
In this context, he explained that it is not just a financial issue, but also a strategic one.
„Beyond these amounts of 30 million, there is a strategic importance for the Romanian state. Why? The entire region has a huge interest, a great hunger to train F-16 pilots. All the countries in the region. The next available slot, I believe, is over a year away for an F-16 pilot course. They are expensive and there are few of them. These aircraft, modernised at Avioane Craiova, could replace a significant part of the training done on F-16s. It is also much cheaper and you can find more slots. Therefore, with these aircraft, you do, I don’t know, 60-70% of the training, afterwards you move to the F-16. And you solve this issue very quickly,” Radu Miruta said.
According to him, for the aircraft to be delivered, two more technical conditions need to be met, one related to the software and the other to an electronic munition launcher, for which a request has been made which cannot be fulfilled.
„There is a committee trying to remove this obligation from the contract. The bad part is only now coming. The deadline by which Avioane Craiova was required to send and deliver the product has expired and the Ministry of Defence will be forced by law to ask them to return the downpayment. It is in two stages, twenty million, with the second stage being larger…” the Economy Minister added. AGERPRES
