Radio sets instead of equipment: NAKO evaluated this year’s state defence order

28 December, 2021

This year, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is unable to spend the annual defence budget as planned. In 2021, the Ukrainian army was supposed to receive 421 items of automotive equipment. The actual number is far less. In 11 months, the MOD procured only 122 items of automotive equipment as a part of the state defence order. For now, it is unclear if the remaining 299 items can be purchased during the last month of the year.

Three military ships should have been repaired and an arms depot should have been renovated this year, according to the budget-funded program “Development, procurement, modernization, and maintenance of armament, military equipment, means, and hardware.” As of November, nothing has happened.

This was established by NAKO by comparing the MOD’s 2021 plans against the Ministry’s actual spending. The information was provided by the MOD in response to an official request by MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn.

The MOD procured 122 items of automotive equipment during the first 11 months of 2021. Therefore, it is very unlikely that they will procure almost 300 items during the last month of the year. There is a risk that the Ministry will follow its traditional logic of redirecting funds due to failure to make timely procurements. In this case, it would be possible to report that all or almost all funds were duly spent.

This possibility also follows from our analysis of the MOD’s response. At the beginning of the year, it planned to procure 69 items of communications equipment. However, payment was made for 807 items. According to the plan, 37 air drones should have been procured, but in fact 12 more items were purchased, for a total of 49 air drones.Unfortunately, it is not possible to establish what kind of equipment was not supplied or which ships were not renovated. This is because procurements of all military equipment and armaments in Ukraine are kept secret.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to establish what kind of equipment was not supplied or which ships were not renovated. This is because procurements of all military equipment and armaments in Ukraine are kept secret.

The budget-funded program only indicates the total number of prospective military procurements. NAKO has attempted to figure out why the numbers are much less than planned. As of today, we have received no official response from the Ministry.

At the same time, the MOD’s spending on renovating armaments and military equipment was UAH 25.6 billion in 2020, compared to only UAH 16 billion during the first nine months of 2021, according to the State Treasury Service of Ukraine.

NAKO recommends the MOD take concrete steps to reduce the levels of secrecy that prevent anti-corruption control over defence procurements. In particular:

Introduce competitive defence procurements instead of the state defence order.
Apply open competitive procedures to procuring military goods and equipment, e.g., automobile vehicles, with publicly available technical specifications.
Introduce quarterly reporting on the budget-funded program “Development, procurement, modernization, and maintenance of armament, military equipment, means, and hardware” by the MOD.

Earlier NAKO warned that the MOD is planning to secretly spend UAH 95 billion on modernizing armaments by the end of 2024.

The memo on the amount of defence procurement for the Armed Forces of Ukraine prepared in response to the request by MP Yurchyshyn can be found via the following link.