Vaher accepts responsibility for missing 70 million euro contract

State Defence Investment Centre Director General Elmar Vaher has accepted responsibility for the State Audit Office not receiving a repeatedly requested 70 million euro artillery shell contract, ERR reported.

The State Audit Office had previously criticised the State Defence Investment Centre, known as RKIK, for failing to provide the contract despite repeated requests. RKIK said it had sent the contract on June 5, while the State Audit Office maintained that it had not received it.

Anastassia Kovalenko-Kõlvart, chair of the Riigikogu anti-corruption committee, asked for an explanation at the committee’s public emergency meeting on Thursday.

Vaher said he was responsible for the error. He explained that at 3:26 p.m. on June 5, RKIK’s head of audit sent four contracts to the State Audit Office.

“We were convinced that the contract had been sent, but it turned out that it had not,” Vaher said.

He said he had also spoken with State Auditor General Janar Holm, who asked why RKIK had not sent the contracts. “I asked my people, they said we had sent them, and that was where it ended,” Vaher said.

Vaher said RKIK’s fault was that it had not confirmed whether the email had reached the State Audit Office. “We did not put them in the cloud,” he said.

He said the documents were four PDF files that should have been delivered by email. “I do not understand why it did not go through,” Vaher said.

Kovalenko-Kõlvart asked whether the confidential contracts should have been sent with confirmation from the State Audit Office that the email had arrived.

“I would not try to regulate everything,” Vaher replied. He added that RKIK could improve its document-delivery procedures in the future.

The anti-corruption committee discussed problems with the use of funds and corruption risks in the defence sector in light of a State Audit Office audit.