Govt. Mulls International Fighter Jet Tender
by Wiraj Silva
“The Cabinet gave green light to SLAF to go ahead with open tender or ICB process in order to gain the ideal aircraft at the best financial package. So China, India, Pakistan, United Kingdom or any other country could submit EoI (Expression of Interest) outlining their respective financing method, be it credit lines or soft loans,” said Defence Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi speaking to The Sunday Leader.
According to highly placed sources SLAF is looking at purchasing eight fighter jets, two cargo planes and one training jet at a cost of US$ 400 million or roughly Rs. 60 billion. Earlier Pakistan, India and China were outdoing each other to grab this lucrative deal.
“A business tycoon, who was famous for being an arms dealer during the tenure of the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, was the local agent for Pakistan whilst a son-in-law of a former Sri Lanka Army Commander, who contested for the Presidential Elections, is the local agent for China,” he said.
In the meantime several quarters of the government were interested in purchasing C113 from United Kingdom. However, many who genuinely stood for good governance and a transparent process negotiated on a G2G (government to government) basis to prevent middlemen and third party agents, strongly advocated an international competitive bidding (ICB), stating that opting otherwise was likely to backfire on the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG).
The government initially wanted to purchase JF-17 Thunder – a third-generation fighter co-produced by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation (CAC). Currently the JF-17 is flown only by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), with the first squadron of Block 1 aircraft becoming operational in 2010. In late December 2015, PAC rolled out the 16th of a planned total of 50 Block 2 aircraft to complete the PAF’s fourth JF-17 squadron in service.
However in January 2016, New Delhi exerted pressure on Sri Lanka opposing SLAF plans to buy the J-17s on the ground that Sri Lanka does not need fighter aircraft and instead said India had offered its own Tejas to the SLAF instead. Stiff opposition from India has forced Sri Lanka to drop plans to buy JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft from Pakistan.
The Indian government delivered the non-paper – diplomatic parlance for a white sheet of paper without a letterhead or signature – to Colombo at the highest levels about three weeks ago after reports that Pakistan was seriously engaging the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) on the Chinese fighter aircraft to replace the SLAF’s ageing fleet of Israeli Kfirs and Russian-made MiG-27s.
Pakistan had been pushing for the sale of 10 to 12 JF-17s, each priced about $35 million. Talk of the deal gained ground after a visit to Pakistan by SLAF chief Gagan Bulathsinhala last November. He was invited to send a team to assess the aircraft at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) in Kamra.
Kamra is where the PAC and China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) co-produce the aircraft. But defence experts believe that the aircraft are more or less only assembled at Kamra from readymade Chinese kits. Taking up the Pakistani invitation, a team of Sri Lankan Air Force officials visited Kamra to test the aircraft and run simulation tests.
