The logistics multipurpose ship that the Portuguese Armed Forces intend to buy France will cost 22,000 euros to taxpayers for each day surfing, revealed this Wednesday in Parliament Chief of Staff of the Navy (CEMA ). Still, less than eight thousand euros frigates, explained Admiral Apple Fragoso. How Come? Because the engines, as are “younger”, spend less fuel, told Lusa parliamentary sources.
On leaving the hearing, held in camera, the chief of staff the Armed Forces (CEMGFA), General Pina Monteiro, was limited in turn to ensure reporters that all the costs of operation and maintenance of multi-purpose logistics ship Siroco are “accommodated” in budgetary terms and that your purchase is a opportunity.
The two chiefs were military on Wednesday morning in Parliament at the request of members of the majority PSD / CDS, to return to operational and strategic advantages explicaras for acquiring this ship, on sale for € 80 million.
“We believe that the additional information that was provided to the National Defense Commission reached the objectives, because we were clear, precise, concise, in relation to all information that we have available “on the Siroco, told Lusa General Pina Monteiro.
Statements of CEMGFA refusing to give me further details about the operation and maintenance costs due to “negotiating reasons”, contrasting with the CEMA to March 31, during a debate in the Palace of the Order of Malta in Lisbon. On Tuesday, the head of the General Staff of the Navy said the Portuguese Navy “must have skill and art” to receive the ship Sirocco, noting that in 2015 “there is no estimated budget” for the costs of integration.
“If this acquisition goes ahead, the Navy will have to have the skill and art to receive a ship whose trim range between 100 and 230 elements, depending on the mission at all times and for which there is no budget allocated in 2015 for the costs of integration, “said Admiral Luis Fragoso Apple.
Remember that, to buy the Sirocco, the Navy will have to postpone the modernization of the last two frigates of Vasco da Gama class. “These last two frigates would undergo a modernization in different ways that allow its use in low and medium intensity scenarios without compromising national commitments to NATO, keeping them fully operational”, can be read in a clarification sent to newsrooms by the Navy March 26.
The possible purchase of the Sirocco, which for the military chiefs fills “a critical gap forces projection capability” and “a recurring shortfall in the achievement of national objectives” , may be compromised if the Socialist Party refrain Friday in the global final vote on the Military Planning Law (LPM).
All as before …
This Wednesday, at the end of the hearing, the Socialist deputy Marcos Perestrello again defended that the acquisition of Sirocco, as with any other military equipment, should be given in the LPM and that “nothing has changed” .
“The PS has no problem with the ship, our problem is with the law,” said Rep Lusa, guaranteed even keep abstaining in the final vote on the overall LPM, scheduled for Friday, if there is no change. “The government, whether to buy the ship, you must create it in the LPM, you must take what is pluggable and what is not,” he insisted.
On Tuesday, the Defense Minister José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, said the government was waiting for the next meeting of the Defence Committee [a Wednesday] to take the “appropriate procedures”. “At this point we hope and we will see what the military point of view, operational, will be said in the commission of Defense and we believe it will be said in order to be able to facilitate procedures for the acquisition,” said the defense minister responsible for .
On March 26, an official source of Aguiar-Branco’s office told reporters that the minister admitted suspend “all negotiations” due to then announced abstaining from the vote on the PS LPM in the art.
The same source stressed that the option to purchase the French ship sailed a “unanimous decision” of the board of commanders and that both the general Pina Monteiro as Admiral Apple Fragoso discussed the issue with members in hearings in the Committee of Defense in February.
The MoD also stressed that the law, approved in general with votes of the majority and the PS, was tabled in Parliament “for more than two months without having been any initiative to further discuss this issue. “
Another source close to the process said Lusa that the deputy PS John Smith was nominated by the Socialist Secretary-General as an interlocutor with the Ministry of Defence and was informed personally by the Minister José Pedro Aguiar-Branco on the details of the acquisition of Sirocco.
An official source at the Ministry of Defence said at the time that negotiations were going on with the French State and that the Navy already has identified the necessary funds to proceed with the purchase, but that this will not happen without a “general consensus” on the matter.
This Wednesday, the CEMA Members have said that negotiations for the purchase are suspended and that the final price of the ship will depend on the additional equipment (communications, radar, sonar, weapons) and maintenance made by the French.
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