NEW DELHI: The Centre has decided to cancel all ongoing tenders for defence equipment won by Italy’s Finmeccanica as a precursor to blacklisting the firm being investigated for bribery in the AgustaWestland chopper scam.
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar said the process for blacklisting Finmeccanica and its subsidiaries — AgustaWestland, which is its British unit — had started and a note was sent to the law ministry.
“Wherever there is capital procurement of Finmeccanica and their subsidiaries, all requests for proposal (RFP) will be closed. I am very clear,” he said. However, the annual maintenance and import of spare parts of already acquired supplies would be continued with the firm and only fresh capital acquisition was being nixed.
The Centre has withdrawn RFP for heavyweight torpedoes for Scorpene submarines which was won by WASS, a Finmeccanica subsidiary, during the UPA regime.
“If there is a blacklisting for a specific number of years, which will be issued in the order, there will be no transaction by the defence ministry with that company for that many years,” he said.
Emphasising that national security “cannot be compromised” just because the company had done something wrong, he said, “I cannot put six ships of mine out of commission because one spare part is to be imported from some company of Finmeccanica.”
{{/usCountry}}Emphasising that national security “cannot be compromised” just because the company had done something wrong, he said, “I cannot put six ships of mine out of commission because one spare part is to be imported from some company of Finmeccanica.”
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