The contract, signed this week, starts Nov. 23 and is a substantial improvement in value-for-money over the contract period, a Defense Department statement said.

Confirmation of the contract follows a complaint about aspects of the $30 million tender and a subsequent independent review. The complaint was lodged by Strategic Aviation after losing the contract for troop movements it held for five years.

The Australian secretary of Defense commissioned a probity review July 15 into the tender completed earlier this year for the provision of services.

"This review was undertaken by Defense's Chief Audit Executive. Concurrently, Defense's probity review process was independently validated by PricewaterhouseCoopers," the Department of Defense said in a written statement.

"Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the Australian Government Solicitor were contracted on Sept. 2 to conduct an additional independent assessment regarding the financial viability of the preferred tenderer and the overall selection process. Those aspects were beyond the scope of the Chief Audit Executive's probity review."

That assessment found no evidence of bias in the process, any outside influence that could have compromised the overall selection process or any reason that would suggest that the tenderer wasn't a fit and proper organization.

These findings were consistent with the outcome of Defense's probity review, the Defense Department said.

Adagold Aviation, set up in 1992, is an independent, Brisbane air charter brokerage and management service company for passenger and air-freight requirements.

Clients include government, corporate, entertainment, mining and energy, cargo and other sectors. For three years Adagold was the official aviation supplier to the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

The company also holds a Deed of Standing Offer with the Australian government that allows it to be used at very short notice for specific contracts.

The confirmed Middle East contract is the second for Adagold. It was contracted between 2002 and 2005 to service the Australian military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan with a weekly heavy-lift freighter that maintained a dispatch reliability of 99.75 percent, Adagold said.

Adagold continues to provide substantial logistical support for Australian forces throughout the Pacific regions including Timor-Leste, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

But Australia's media are questioning some of the government's contracts signed with Adagold, especially in light of the recent probe into the Middle East tendering process.

Adagold provides air transport services to the Department of Immigration for the movement of detainees within Australia and the South Pacific region. However, the company has a near-monopoly on detainee flight, a report in the Western Australian newspaper WA Today said.

Adagold picked up 52 of 56 Department of Immigration and Citizenship asylum-seeker flight contracts awarded between June 2009 and March 31. These are worth around $6.36 million of the $7.13 million spent by the federal government on such flights, the WA Today report said.

In 2008-09, Adagold won 23 of 45 asylum seeker flights, worth $2.26 million. The next most successful company won 12 contracts worth $876,000, WA Today said.

The amount of work going to Adagold has been questioned by the owners of some of the five other aviation brokers or charter airlines on the department's panel of providers.

''Immigration won't tell us why we did not get the contract or the price of the successful bid,'' said one manager. ''It makes you wonder what is going on as we all pretty much operate on the same margins.''

A spokesman for the Immigration Department said its asylum-seeker aviation contracts are processed in accordance with public service guidelines.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News