LONDON, (BM) – Serious cost overruns and time delays in critical defense programs related to updating the nuclear weapons sphere were discovered by the UK Parliament Accounts Committee, learned BulgarianMilitary.com citing Defense News.
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The Counting Committee on May 12 published a report on the status of programs to upgrade the infrastructure needed to create nuclear weapons and conduct routine maintenance. It turned out that the implementation of three key nuclear programs: the assembly of new warheads, the creation of nuclear reactors for submarines and the construction of nuclear submarines themselves – were delayed by a period of 1.7 to 6.3 years, and their total costs would increase by 1.35 billion pounds sterling ($ 1.67 billion).
The committee’s report said that cost overruns and delays were largely caused by errors that could have been avoided. In particular, the beginning of construction work before the end of the design of buildings. At the same time, the committee warns of a possible increase in project costs, since
The head of the counting committee, a member of the British parliament, Meg Hiller, said that the overspending was caused by the fact that the Department of Defense continues to repeat the same mistakes for decades and does not learn from them at all. “Such actions lead to a sharp decrease in citizens’ confidence in our defense capabilities, and therefore are absolutely unacceptable,” she said.
The counting committee identified the most serious violations in the MENSA program, according to which a new plant for assembling and disassembling nuclear warheads should be built in Bergfield in the south of England. This program is implemented by the American corporation Lockheed Martin and the British Jacobs Engineering and Serco.
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The cost of the program increased by 1.07 billion pounds, and almost 400 million of this amount, according to the reviewers, are overruns. The report states that the implementation of the program will be delayed by 6.3 years.
According to a report by the UK Audit Office on nuclear infrastructure in December 2019, the initial cost of all 52 UK nuclear programs was estimated at nearly £ 5 billion. At the same time, the cost of the three listed programs amounted to almost 25% of all planned costs.
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