Slovakia's Defense Ministry eyes on Land Rover to replace ageing fleet of UAZ tactical vehicles

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Defence & Security News - Slovakia
 
 
Slovakia's Defense Ministry eyes on Land Rover to replace ageing fleet of UAZ tactical vehicles
After having showed interest in the purchase of Black Hawk helicopters, the Slovakian Defence Ministry is now seeking dozens of all-terrain Land Rover vehicles, the Defence Ministry confirmed on January 16. Former defence minister Lubomír Galko of Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), who was in office from July 2010 to November 2011, launched a programme to gradually replace the existing fleet of Soviet-era UAZ all terrain vehicles, and Glvác looks set to continue.
     
Slovakia Defense Ministry eyes on Land Rover to replace agein fleet of UAZ tactical vehicles 640 001 Future batch of Land Rovers is to replace ageing fleet of UAZ-469 tactical vehicles
     
The first purchase saw Galko by 70 Land Rovers for €64,000 each without VAT.

“The Ministry has probably some unspent finances from the previous year,” Central European Policy Institute (CEPI) analyst Jaroslav Nad told the Denník N daily. “But it’s still better for the army [to buy vehicles] than to return saved money back to the [state] budget.”

“We will inform about the purchase of Land Rover vehicles soon,” Defence Ministry spokeswoman Martina Balleková told Denník N.

The Land Rover purchase will go through the NATO Support Agency (NSPA), the organisation’s integrated logistics and services provider agency.

“We try to use this way when it is beneficiary,” Glvác said, adding that Slovakia just wrote what it wanted to buy and NSPA made an agreement on conditions with a supplier.

“It is a good way [of buying],” he said, as quoted by Denník N. “Various suspicious suppliers will not infiltrate such purchases.”