Estonia to buy radar with Nordic help

TALLINN (BNS) - The Estonian Defense Ministry plans to carry through
a failed public procurement tender for the purchase of air
surveillance radars with expert assistance from the Nordic
governments.

"In reviewing the protests, the arbitration court of the public
procurement authority found that a wrong procedure had been applied,
because we're dealing with a state secret, and the best way to solve
the issue is to call in Nordic experts and once again review the
entire procedure of the tender,"Defense Minister Juri Luik said on
Jan. 11.

He said the experts would review the tender offers submitted by the
companies and only then make a final decision.

"The Nordic governments have agreed to send their experts to the work
group,"Luik said, adding that in this way the entire issue could be
solved within a few months.

The defense minister on Dec. 1 last year revoked his own resolution
which had declared the French company Thomson CSF as winner of the
radar tender.

The decision came after an arbitration court with the Estonian public
procurement authority had recommended that the results of the tender
be canceled following protests from three rival contestants.

The other companies said Thomson's Master T radar failed to meet the
conditions set down in the invitation to the tender, and the
commission which picked it as winner had failed to base its decision
on the criteria set down in the invitation.

Estonia wants to buy a so-called three-dimensional radar with a
working radius of about 400 kilometers. The radar, estimated to cost
about 200 million kroons ($13.15 million), must be able to identify
all aircraft that enter the country's air space.