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| An F-35A, South Korea's first stealth fighter jet acquisition from the U.S. aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin, arrives at a military base in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, in this March 29, 2019 photo. Courtesy of Defense Acquisition Program Administration |
By Jung Da-min
The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) has recently concluded that there was false reporting by officials at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) to the defense ministry, while the procurement agency was pushing the third phase of the F-X next-generation fighter jet project forward under the administration of former President Park Geun-hye from around 2013 to 2015.
The audit released by the BAI Tuesday revealed that DAPA officials in charge of the project made false reports in 2014 and 2015 to then-defense Ministers Kim Kwan-jin (December 2010 to June 2014) and Han Min-koo (June 2014 to July 2017) on the results of negotiations with competitors including Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Although the BAI did not go into detail about the reports citing the military project's confidentiality, defense industry officials say the DAPA officials made them in order to promote Lockheed Martin's F-35A Lightning II radar-evading strike aircraft.
South Korea began the F-X project in 1999, seeking to deploy next generation fighter aircraft. U.S. defense firms Boeing with its "drawing board" F-15SE and Lockheed Martin with the F-35A competed in the latest bidding, which started in 2013.
"The Defense Acquisition Program Administration was not compliant with relevant laws and it made false reports to the defense ministry's defense project promotion committee regarding the facts of the results of negotiations for the offset trading for the F-X project in 2014, and of the implementation process of the offset trading involving a military satellite in 2015," reads the latest announcement on the audit of the procurement agency conducted from April to July 2017.
In March 2014, the Republic of Korea Air Force agreed to purchase 40 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II for 7.4 trillion won ($6.2 billion), with the caveat that the U.S. aerospace and defense giant provide 25 technologies required for the KF-X project, South Korea's joint fighter aircraft development program with Indonesia, as part of an offset program.
The U.S. government, however, notified DAPA in 2015 that it would not allow the transfer of four key technologies.
Another part of the agency's offest trading with Lockheed, the launching of South Korea's first military satellite with the arrangement to sendi it into orbit by early 2018, was also put on hold between 2015 and 2017 by the U.S. firm, which cited manufacturing costs and demanded Seoul share the excess financing.
Lockheed Martin later resumed the satellite project after the U.S. government meditation and in March this year DAPA said the U.S. defense firm would provide the military communications satellite, which would be launched in November.
But the controversy over whether the U.S. firm should pay compensation for the suspension of the launch has yet to be resolved.
Another BAI audit of the F-X project from October 2017 to May 2018 regarding the selection of the supplier of the aircraft, whose results were released in February, also revealed that officials in charge made false reports regarding negotiations on the technology transfer.
The BAI said at the time it was hard to say that the ministry and DAPA's selection of the F-35As rather than the F-15SEs went against the national interest, and there would be no punishment for the officials involved.
In the announcement of the latest audit on the offset deal for the F-X project, however, the BAI said that it had requested the procurement agency to punish officials involved and to improve relevant systems.
So far, no DAPA officials have been subject to formal disciplinary action over the affair, although two of them reportedly had their bonuses reduced.
A DAPA spokesman said he was not sure whether the audit was about the process of the deal or its results; while Lockheed Martin had not commented at the time of the publication of this article.
