Watchkeeper surveillance
drones had been commissioned in 2005. By now they had only six days of active
duty after a decade in development, The Guardian revealed.
This British
army drone supposed to be developed as an affordable solution and is now four
years late. An investigation discovered that by the time it is fully
operational the costs have risen to £1.2billion.
The order
was for 54 drones to be designed and build.
The announcement of the Watchkeeper surveillance drones was made in 2005
by the then defence John Reid who said they would be “key to battlefields survey
in the near future”. He signed a contract
of £800million with the consortium led by the French defence firm Thales.
Why again a French company. British
engineers would have been more than capable of designing and building it. Plus
it would have given jobs.
The first
Watchkeeper surveillance drone was expected to enter service from 2010 and
being fully operational by 2013
The reason
for the delay was given as software glitches and army staff shortages and it is
now planned for 2017 the earliest. It does not sound very definite.
The
investigation by the non-profit Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The
Guardian show a muddle costing the organisation had given.
At the end
of the day, it is the taxpayer who has to foot the bill at a time where they
are so hard-up they rely on food banks to survive. The Ministry of Defence also
does not care about the starving one million families in a country to be the
six richest in the world.
Reports were
hitting the headline that the MoD wastes million and billion of pounds by
either making mistakes in ordering or ordering the wrong goods. The Prime Minister
Dave Cameron or Chancellor George Osborne do not seem to control this and other
department were huge sums of money are being wasted. How about putting there
austerity?
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