site.btaDefence Ministry Announces Public Procurement Procedure for Maintenance of Soviet-era MiGs

Sofia, December 11 (BTA) - The Defence Ministry has opened a public procurement procedure for awarding a contract for integrated logistical support for 15 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter aircraft for a period of four years. The projected cost is up to 81,294,416 leva, excluding VAT. The decision was made on december 6 and published by the Ministry late last week.

It transpires from the document that the Ministry will only invite to the procedure the Russian RSK MiG Corporation, which is the manufacturing company and holds the licenses for the fighters' repairs. The procurement procedure concerns 12 MiG-29As and three MiG-29UBs. The integrated logistical support must restore the aircraft's airworthiness and extend the service life of the engines, ensuring a total flight time of no less than 1,450 hours (1,000 hours for the twelve MiG-29As and 450 hours for the three MiG-29UBs, at a fixed price per hour. No less than two-thirds of all the aircraft must be in a state of constant airworthiness.

The deadline for the Russian company to respond is December 18.

The Defence Ministry's rationale for the decision says that ensuring the airworthiness of the MiGs pf the Bulgarian Air Force "is vital for national security and the defence of the country, for ensuring the sovereignty of the air space and the performance of the air policing tasks". "Currently, the number of airworthy MiG-29 is at a critical minimum which does not allow adequate training of the crews, threatens the safety of flights and put to risk the performance of air policing," says the document.

The government's decision to go head with the repair of the existing fleet of MiGs comes a couple of months after a procedure for purchase of a new type of jet fighters for the Bulgarian Air Force was put in the freezer when a parliamentary committee of inquiry suggested the project should start from scratch to eliminate omissions.

Before that procedure was put on hold, three bids for eight fighter jets that Bulgaria was planning to acquire at a total cost of 1.5 billion leva had been shortlisted: for new Gripens (Griffin) from Sweden's Saab, for used Eurofighter Typhoons from Italy, and for used US-made F-16s from Portugal. A caretaker government (January-March 2017) announce that its preference was for the Gripens - and so did President Rumen Radev. The decision of the parliamentary committee triggered an exchange of lobbying recriminations between the Prime Minister and the President.

In early December Defence Minister Krassimir Karakachanov said that the procedure for the jet fighters is practically starting from scratch and that he had let the Air Force experts, as project leaders, to propose options for discussion. In his words, some of the legal experts at the Defence Ministry argue that the decisions of the board managing the project are limited to the three bidders that participated so far, while others disagree. "I personally am of the opinion that the more manufacturers meeting the condition to be of a NATO or EU Member State we approach with a request for proposal, the better," he commented.