Britain’s MoD has paid £5.5bn for 589 Ajax armored vehicles which have been described as “flawed from the start”
The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) is facing significant challenges as a result of delays and safety problems that have hampered the delivery of the British Army’s new fleet of hundreds of armored vehicles, the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed on Friday.
That is the MoD approach described. “flawed from the start,”The NAO emphasised how “management failures have since led to missed program milestones and unresolved safety and technical issues,”With the military and manufacturer remaining in “dispute over unresolved” problems.
In a Friday report, the public spending watchdog highlighted the current situation. “significant problems” that have plagued the MoD’s acquisition of the Ajax armored vehicles, which are set to provide the UK army with “its first fully digitized platform.”
The MoD has a £5.5 billion ($7.19 billion) contract with General Dynamics Land Systems to design, manufacture and provide initial support for 589 Ajax armored vehicles. However, at the end of 2021, despite the UK having paid £3.2 billion ($4.18 billion), the MoD had only received 26 vehicles, leaving the military with an aging fleet that is expensive to maintain.
“The NAO report reads like a checklist for major project failure where almost everything that can go wrong, did go wrong. It means Ajax has now joined the sorry pantheon of government projects which have gone off the tracks,”Meg Hillier (Labour MP, chair of the Public Accounts Committee) responded to the most recent assessment.
Public spending watchdog says that safety concerns regarding excessive vibration and noise levels in armored vehicles have not been resolved. According to the NAO, the MoD still has not set a new operating capability date for armored cars.
“As we have made clear, Ajax is a troubled program, and we will not accept a vehicle that is not fit for purpose. As the NAO recognizes, we are working with General Dynamics to resolve the noise and vibration issues with a view to Ajax being successfully delivered to the army,”The MoD stated in a statement.
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