24.07.2024.
Minister Gašić: We have stopped the destruction of military equipment carried out during Ponoš’s time
Minister of Defence Bratislav Gašić has rejected the allegations made by MP Zdravko Ponoš that 29 old tanks were sold in 2018 at 52 cents per kilogram and reminded that as many as 522 armoured vehicles and artillery systems had been destroyed by 2012, a process in which Ponoš, the then chief of the General Staff, had been actively involved.
- In the past 12 years, not a single weapon has been destroyed, cut into pieces, scrapped and sold, or sold to be destroyed. All the weapons for sale were placed on the market at regular prices - said Minister Gašić.
He has pointed out the fact that in the period from 2004 to 2008, 200 tanks were destroyed and scrapped, and then sold at 95.11 euros per ton, i.e. at 0.095 euro cents per kilogram.
- But that price was not final either. The final price was considerably lower, because the government at the time paid additional costs of cutting up the materiel - about 1,200 euros per tank, meaning that the final selling price was 0.062 euro cents per kilogram – said the minister.
According to Gašić, in 2018, 27 tanks were sold, not 29 as stated by Ponoš, and not as scrap metal. They were sold at seven to ten times higher prices, and in some cases even higher, than in the previous period.
- Those tanks were sold based on the decision to sell surplus assets, which was signed during Ponoš's time, and we increased the price in 2018 in order to avoid the bargain prices at which they were sold in the period from 2004 to 2008 – underlined Minister Gašić.
According to him, Serbia is a country with the largest tank fleet in the region today, precisely because the destruction and sale of weapons as scrap metal at extremely low prices has been stopped.
