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Former minister Fernando Cordero appraised each Dhruv helicopter at $ 16 million
Posted On 24 Oct 2016
The details of the sale of the three Dhruv helicopters of the Ecuadorian Air Force (FAE) are held in reserve at the Ministry of Defense. But the cost per unit would reach $ 16 million.
That was the appraisal made by former Minister Fernando Cordero in October 2015, when he announced the unilateral termination of the contract with the Indian company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) after four of the seven aircraft purchased in 2008 for $ 45′ 200,000 crashed between 2009 and 2015.
Cordero said that there was a credit balance of $ 15’200.000 for the HAL company, to be paid in ten annual installments and that$ 6’080.000 were paid until this year.
“The Dhruv had a cost of about $ 5.5 million (per unit). In the case of the last two (that crashed in January 2015), Ecuador was compensated with $ 16 million for each one. That is, a Dhruv cost $ 16 million,” the former official said.
A report dated August 1, 2008, held by the International Relations Commission of the Assembly notes that the budget allocated for that purchase was $ 35 million, but former Minister Wellington Sandoval required an additional $ 10 million to buy the presidential helicopter (FAE-601, which crashed in Huigra in 2013 and left three dead).Thus, the value exceeded $ 45 million.
