Two days before the date of the tender for the purchase of more than a thousand pickup trucks for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the auction organizer withdrew his advertisement on Prozorro.
The Defense Department planned to spend 1,749,865,263 hryvnias including VAT (one billion seven hundred forty-nine million UAH) on the purchase of 1016 pickup trucks. Procurement participants had to submit their proposals until 17:00 on December 27, 2023.
The auction was scheduled to begin on December 28. However, even then, experts from the Avto24 editorial team began to have doubts about the reality of delivery of such a number of cars in a short time – until March 15, 2024. On this date, the customer should have received the entire batch of machines, without breaking them into parts.
Auto24 experts then sounded the alarm about the price of pickups. On average, the Ministry of Defense planned to pay 1,722,308 hryvnia for each SUV. Our conclusions that there are offers on the market for new pickup trucks at a much lower price were nevertheless heard – publicity began. Moreover, the editors gave a full breakdown of prices for the most popular pickup trucks, which were much cheaper than the stated purchase price.
The crew of suicide bombers is at the firing position. Photo: forums.kitmaker.net
The customer removed the advertisement for bidding. It is reported that this decision was made on the basis of a letter from the head of the Central Directorate for Coordination of Foreign Economic Activity of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine dated December 23, 2023 No. 220/64/1301 regarding the final clarification (clarification) of the technical characteristics of vehicles and some conditions of purchase in the electronic procurement system Prozorro.
It is expected that the Defense Procurement Agency will change not only delivery dates, but also technical procurement requirements, including. New criteria will appear regarding the technical characteristics of cars, delivery times or prices.
It is possible that the customer may change. As you remember, recently procurement for the Armed Forces has been carried out by two state enterprises: the Defense Procurement Agency and the Defense Procurement Agency.