Peter La Franchi/CANBERRA
Australian Defence minister John Moore has announced plans to establish a team to address major problems on an acquisition project, believed to be either the Royal Australian Air Force's long-delayed Lockheed Martin AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft or the Royal Australian Navy's Kaman SH-2G(A) Seasprite helicopter.
Neither the minister or his office are prepared to identify the project. The minister is indicating that the problems result from senior officers pressuring project staff to amend contracts after signature.
Last year, the minister created two intervention teams to deal with major problems on the RAN submarines and amphibious transports.
Moore told a Royal United Services Institute conference in Canberra last week that "in relation to a particular project we have in mind, that something like that [setting up the intervention team] will occur again."
The minister says "within a project, there seems to be a degree of interference within the contract itself after it has been let. This occurs primarily because uniform people have been within a project team and [they] have subsequently been leant upon by air marshals, admirals and generals to make certain rectifications at the time contract work is being carried out.
"In no small way that has contributed enormously to failure of projects, certainly cost and time overruns. Those things must stop."
The RAAF's A$871 million ($462 million) AP-3C upgrade is more than two years late and has increased in value by A$124 million over the last four years. Raytheon are hoping to hand over the first of 17 upgraded aircraft for acceptance trials within the next four months.
The RAN's $952 million SH-2G(A) project is expected to see prime contractor Kaman hand over of the first three out of a total of eleven new aircraft early next year. However, the helicopters will not be delivered at the specified standard because of avionics development problems (Flight International, 31 October-6 November).
Source: Flight International
