The State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection has canceled tenders for the purchase of Mavic 3E and Autel EVO Max drones 4 times in the last 3 months for a total amount of about UAH 1 billion due to the lack of offers from suppliers. Why do they not want to participate in the tenders?
The State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection has canceled tenders for the purchase of Mavic 3E and Autel EVO Max drones 4 times in the last 3 months for a total amount of about UAH 1 billion due to the lack of offers from suppliers. Why do they not want to participate in the tenders?
According to the project «Our Money», since December last year, the State Service for Special Communications has been trying to hold tenders for the purchase of 6,872 Mavic 3E for UAH 659 million and 1,200 Autel EVO Max 4N for UAH 340 million. However, the fourth attempt ended with the cancellation of the bidding, because no market participant submitted an offer.
«The fact is that the DSSZZI sets the expected price of drones much lower than the current market price. For the Mavic 3E, they set 96,000. And after that, participants have to bargain with a lower price. Such a price was possible last fall, but then it grew quite sharply (more on the reasons below). Now, for daytime Mavics, you can only get more expensive 100,000 UAH,» notes Yuriy Nikolov, editor of «Nashi Groshe».
He reported that other customers contract drones at a price of over 100,000, but the State Service for Special Communications «stubbornly keeps the price» at 100,000 and does not receive suppliers at all. It is noted that the State Service for Special Communications wants to buy Autel drones at a price of 283,000 UAH, while their retail price fluctuates at the level of 400,000 UAH.
Among the reasons for the increase in the price of drones are supply restrictions from China and large purchases of Mavic drones by the Ministry of Defense in late autumn, which sharply reduced their number in suppliers' warehouses.
«A decrease in supply with constant demand leads to a deficit, to which the market reacts by raising prices until a new balance with demand is reached. However, in the winter, the DSSZZI continued to maintain the autumn level of the expected price, and it is quite logical that problems began,» explains «Nashi Groshi.»
The publication claims that in early December, the State Special Communications Service contracted several batches of Mavic drones at a price of UAH 92,000-97,000, when the average purchase price from other customers at Prozorro was already about UAH 105,000.
According to a source in the drone market for «Our Money», drones were not delivered under some of these contracts, although 70% of the advance payments were made for them. Law enforcement officers are currently investigating who appropriated this money — suppliers with whom they signed contracts with the State Special Communications Service or foreign dealers from whom they planned to purchase drones to fulfill the order.
Earlier, detective Andriy Denisyuk, who was involved, in particular, in investigating abuses in the procurement of drones by the State Service for Special Communications within the framework of the «Army of Drones» project, resigned from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). In a letter he sent to his colleagues, Denisyuk stated the reasons for his dismissal .
Recall that at the end of February, a presentation of the drone procurement plan took place, which took place during a meeting with representatives of the Technological Forces of Ukraine union — an association of manufacturers of innovative weapons for the Defense Forces. In 2025, the focus will be reoriented from long-range drones to FPV.
