In the article "Ministry of Defence counts retirement benefits and 500 million in fines in defence spending" it says, among other things:
The cost of retirement benefits for soldiers who have already retired to civilian life. This amounts to more than three billion crowns in 2023 alone. The amount supposedly spent on a "modern and efficient army" also includes a fine of 550 million crowns for mistakes in the purchase of helicopters. The Ministry of Defence has awarded several contracts for the supply of about 1,000 multiply overpriced MINIMI machine guns for 1.5 billion. The machine guns are not supplied by the Belgian manufacturer but by a village dealer CB Servis Centrum.
The Ministry of Defence still refuses to provide information on the details of the purchase, especially the unit prices. The dealer supplying the machine guns is said not to want this. Kverulant.org sued the Ministry of Defence for illegal practices and the Municipal Court in Prague upheld its claim. Nevertheless, Černochová again refused to provide him with the information. Subsequently, the Prague 6 court ordered the bailiff to recover the requested information in September 2023. It will be no surprise if the costs of this execution are also included in the country's defence expenditure.
Several paradoxical conclusions emerge from the above. For example, that the more the Ministry of Defence fixates on arms purchases and the more fines it is fined for doing so, the better the defence will be able to meet our commitment to NATO. Or that the more soldiers go into civilian life, the more the state will have to pay retirement allowances and the better our commitment to defence will look on paper. Finally, the more lawsuits the defence loses, the higher the amount spent on defence. There seems to be something rotten in the state... Czech.
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