The defence contractor tapped, in a direct tender, to upgrade Greece’s old and inactive maritime surveillance planes says the deal isn’t in Athens’ best interests!
According to a front-page exclusive in Sunday’s “Proto Thema”, a document bearing the signature of Lockheed Martin’s top VP for Europe, the Mideast and Africa, Dennys Plessas, written in Greek and dated May 7, 2013, “the activation of the P-3B is not the intended low-cost and risk, in the short term and long term,” the latter warns.
Plessas’ letter is addressed to the Hellenic Navy’s weapons systems directorate.
The surprise decision this month by the radical leftist Greek government, signed off by the rightist populist defence minister and junior partner coalition member Panos Kammenos, approved a 500-million-dollar upgrade of five of six P-3B in the Greek navy’s storage hangars.
The turbo prop planes, first flown in the early 1960s, have been decommissioned for more than five years.
Plessas adds that his company considers that the 500-mln-dollar contract, of which 45 million has already been set aside, is considered by the US defence contractor as “economically unacceptable” and an economically and technologically advantageous solution!
Lockheed, picked directly to implement the contract in 2015, also warn in 2013 that the upgrade of the current P-3B planes will cost the Greek state more than other solutions.
The surprise announcement came as the cash-strapped Greek government’s ministers are logging thousands of kilometres to persuade institutional creditors to extend a bailout loan agreement in exchange for reforms.