Despite facing heavy pressure to ramp up military spending, the Department of National Defence (DND) has slow-rolled one of the least complex of its vehicle replacement programs.
The light utility vehicle program has been on the books for several years. Its purpose is to update the military’s fleet of two-decade-old Afghan war-era Mercedes G-Wagons and civilian-grade utility vehicles, such as pickups and SUVs.
The light utility vehicle program isn’t as high-tech as some other military procurement projects — but it’s still a perfect example of how a procurement system petrified of making mistakes can take a very long time to get anything done, said Steve Saideman, a defence expert at Carleton University.
“We’d rather have no corruption and slow purchases rather than [moving] fast and [accepting] more risk of making mistakes,” he said.
instead of a long complicated process to pre-empt corruption, just have an automatic and detailed post-award review for corruption. Corruption discovered in the review is referred for criminal prosecution.
After the first 500 or so corporate CEOs and executives are jailed, the rest will get the point. Offer your best price, compete with your competitors, sell your offer on its merits in the open bid, and stay away from the bid evaluators and other potential or actual bidders.