The Ministry of Defense will buy a total of 86 new trucks for the needs of the Army of Montenegro (VCG) from the Italian manufacturer of commercial vehicles "Iveco", which, including a contingent of basic spare parts, staff training for their basic maintenance and a two-year warranty, will cost a total of almost 20 million euros.
This is the result of the fact that at the last meeting of the department headed by Minister Dragan Krapović, the Government gave the green light to the signing of the "Implementation Arrangement between the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Italy regarding cooperation in the field of military equipment with the aim of procuring military logistics vehicles and related logistics support, maintenance and training".
This financial arrangement will be realized with a loan provided by the Ministry of Defense at a domestic or foreign commercial bank. Administratively, the work will be done through "gov. to gov" arrangements, which are carried out at the level of the governments of the two countries, in the procurement of weapons and military equipment. Since the Ministry of Defense has since 2020 signed a "Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Italy regarding cooperation in procurement in the field of defense", it was proposed by Krapović's department, and the Government accepted, that the work of renewing the army's fleet of military logistics vehicles be carried out in this way with the Italians. As it was emphasized, through this work, vehicles of identical quality standards and technical specifications will be procured for VCG, such as military logistics vehicles that have been tested and adopted for the needs of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Italy.
The Ministry of Defense explained that in accordance with the budget for 2024, the Croatian Armed Forces planned the procurement of military logistics vehicles, "bearing in mind that the vehicles currently in use in the Army are over 30 years old, and due to constant breakdowns and lack of spare parts, their maintenance is unprofitable."
The Montenegrin army currently uses for these purposes military off-road trucks inherited from the JNA, type TAM 110T7, TAM 150T11 and FAP 2026, and in addition to them, it also has a symbolic number of younger transport logistics vehicles of the type KamAZ, Iveco and BMC that it bought or received as a donation in the past ten years.
"In order to find qualitatively better solutions, the possibility of procuring these vehicles in the EU member states was considered, with the aim of ensuring timely and high-quality procurement of military logistics vehicles. In accordance with that, a working group was formed in the Ministry of Defense to implement the procurement of logistics vehicles for the needs of the ministry and the Ministry of Defense, which carried out a supplementary analysis of the needs of the Ministry of Defense for the procurement of military logistics vehicles by types, types and quantities, in order to implement them within the framework of the planned credit funds, while taking into account previous data and reports on the condition and occupancy of VCG logistics vehicles. As specific needs for transport vehicles of various types were identified, including vehicles to support declared units, contacts were made with several companies from which financial offers and vehicle specifications were obtained, where the Iveco company from the Republic of Italy stood out as the most favorable, which submitted an offer for military logistics vehicles with 4x4 and 6x6 drive configurations, for transporting personnel and equipment. This offer also includes water tanks, fuel tanks and aviation fuel tanks", the Ministry of Defense stated.
In this way, they decided to acquire a total of 86 new military trucks in three different models: Eurocargo 150E28VS, ML170.33VM and ML250.40VM. Of these, 68 vehicles will be configured to transport soldiers or cargo, while ten trucks will be configured as water tankers with a volume of 5 and 7 thousand liters, seven vehicles as diesel fuel tanks with a volume of 6 and 7 thousand liters, and one vehicle as a tanker for aviation fuel with a capacity of 7.000 liters. According to the offer made by Iveco, these vehicles will cost a total of 19.984.175 euros without customs and VAT, and the Italians will deliver them to the VCG to the "Milovan Šaranović" barracks in Danilovgrad.
"In addition, in the proposal of the Implementation Arrangement between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Italy and the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro, personnel training, delivery of a basic package of spare parts, diagnostic devices and a guarantee for two years are planned. The acquisition of military logistics vehicles in this way would repeat the complete fleet of logistics vehicles in VCG, which would increase the safety and security of personnel and equipment, because the vehicles in question have new security systems," the Ministry of Defense stated.
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