UK Defense Ministry fails to deliver armored vehicles to army - PAC
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The Ajax program, planned to be implemented in 2017 and pushed later to 2021, is supposed to provide the army with enhanced armored vehicles.
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One of the AJAX program vehicles
The UK Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said on Friday that the UK Ministry of Defense had failed the Ajax program that seeks to provide the army with enhanced armored vehicles in conformity with NATO requirements, which results in new threats to the national security.
The PAC said that the program was launched in 2010 with the aim to "transform the Army's surveillance and reconnaissance capability." The ministry had signed a 5.5 billion pounds ($6.9 billion) contract with General Dynamics Land Systems UK for the design, manufacturing, and maintenance of over 580 Ajax armored vehicles. The Ajax program was due to be implemented in 2017, but the ministry later pushed the target date to June 2021.
"The Ministry of Defense has once again made fundamental mistakes in its planning and management of a major equipment program and is failing to deliver the enhanced armored vehicles capability that the Army needs to better protect the nation and meet its NATO commitments," the PAC said in a report that was published by the UK Parliament.
However, the PAC noted that the ministry did not succeed in meeting the new target too since it had paid only 3.2 billion pounds to the contractor for 26 Ajax vehicles only by December 2021, and it still does not know "how to fix noise and vibration problems two years after identifying they were injuring soldiers using the tanks."
"The Ajax tanks program has been deeply flawed from the outset and the PAC now seriously doubts it can be recovered within existing costs and commercial arrangements," PAC Chair Meg Hillier said in a statement.
"Enough is enough - the MoD must fix or fail this program before more risk to our national security and more billions of taxpayers’ money wasted," she added.
The statement notes that the program is more than a year late, which means that "soldiers will have to use existing outdated vehicles for longer" while the program itself is facing "significant pressure."
Moreover, the PAC said that there is still a conflict between the ministry and the contractor over the payment while trying the vehicles had been postponed for an unspecified period of time until the revealed problems are solved.
