Inner City Press





In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYTAzerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .



These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis
,



Share |   

Follow on TWITTER

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron. 

MRL on Patreon

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

More: InnerCityPro

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



UN in Murky Drone Procurement Throws Out Low Bidder, Dovgopoly Wants EU Sole Source for DRC Drones

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, March 22 -- In UN Procurement, the lowest bidder doesn't always win. For years the process has been untransparent, and now it is getting worse. Inner City Press is exclusively informed that in the bidding for the UN's Democratic Republic of the Congo UAS or Unmanned Aerial Systems (drones) program, the low bidder is being displaced by more favored companies, unilaterally, by UN Procurement chief Dmitry Dovgopoly.

The story, exclusive to Inner City Press, goes like this: out to bid is a $50 million contract to provide Unmanned Aerial Systems services to the UN's MONUSCO in the DRC for a term of five (3 + 1 + 1) years. The present company, Leonardo, has a contract which expires in November. PPI beat out Leonardo, CAE, Thales, Qintetiq, Airbus and Trans Capital.

But shortly after our award, UN Procurement chief Dmitry Dovgopoly refused to approve the agreed upon terms and demanded PPI perform a demonstration flight prior to contract signature. Inner City Press covered Dovgopoly and similar tricks back when he was at the “D-1” level, and received pushback and is currenty still restricted to minders in the UN for pursuing its anti-corruption coverage into the UN Press Briefing Room, its work space purportedly assigned to a no-show Eygptian state corresponent Sanaa Youssef who has not asked a question in ten years.

In this case, Dovgopoly is said to be lobbied by European interests, see the list of bidders above. As Inner City Press reported, the UN drone program was pushed by Herve Ladsous, the fourth of now five Frenchmen in a row to run UN Peacekeeping.

Dovgopoly's “ditch the winner” campaign has included two site inspections and the demand for a demonstration flight prior to deployment, none of which was performed with Leonardo or Thales. PPI tells Inner City Press it agreed to all demands and began manufacturing of aircraft with its contractors. Dovgopoly canceled the demonstration flight a month later. The manufacturing of aircraft has been suspended as a result.

Dovgopoly has reportedly since alleged that PPI misrepresented a relationship with one of its proposed vendors, which PPI denies. Dovgopoly has sent PPI notice rescinding the notice of consideration for award and requested permission to directly negotiate with competitors due to the urgent need to provide MONUSCO with airborne ISR capability as soon as possible. He has requested permission to inform vendors of the allocated budget, and allow vendors to revise their technical proposals to “accommodate the financial constraint.”

Inner City Press understands that the UN's Headquarters Committee on Contracts has ruled the losing competitors' bids no longer valid since the Request For Proposals was from October 2016. It seems Dovgopoly wishes to discloses how much money is available and allow vendors to inform the UN services they can perform and dictate the price. Paying more for less! But it has happened before, as Inner City Press. And now, under Antonio Guterres. We'll have more on this.

***

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Past (and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540



Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2018 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for