It is not true that the contract for the supply of medical helicopters includes training of pilots and medical teams. This is what the Minister of Transport and Communications Georgi Gvozdeykov said in the programme ‘Offensive with Lyubo Ognyanov’ on the occasion of today's words of the caretaker minister Hristo Alexiev that the contract includes training of pilots and medical teams in real conditions. Gvozdeykov added that all documentation on the public procurement is public and easily accessible, and anyone can verify the veracity of these statements.
‘This is a service order which includes the supply of 2 medical helicopters with the crews to pilot them and the technical staff to maintain them. This exhausts all the contractor's activities’, Georgi Gvozdeykov explained. He stressed that according to the terms of the procedure, it is the state's commitment to provide the medical staff and train them, to provide the operational bases and hangars where the two helicopters will be based.
The Transport Minister also commented on the price offer of the selected contractor. ‘The offer is for BGN 18 million and nowhere in it is it clear how much is the payment per flying hour. It is clear from the documentation that there are two options for payment under the contract — with advance payment and without, as this is optional for the contractor,’ the transport minister said. He added that according to the conditions, the state has to pay BGN 1 million to the company every month, regardless of whether flights are operated or not.
From his words it became clear that the issue with the operational bases where the aircraft should be based has not been cleared. ‘One of the bases, it is written, will be Sofia Airport, which is a civil airport, and the other is in Dolna Mitropolia, where there is no licensed flying site,’ Minister Gvozdeykov said.