OPINION:
The Washington Times published a front-page story Monday on Pentagon procurement of Russian Mi-17 helicopters (“Pro-Russia policy stalls Afghan copters”).
The article identified a company, FTA, and stated that an official within it alerted the Department of Defense’s inspector general’s office of the U.S. Army’s purported mishandling of funds related to a contract for refurbishing Mi-17s with a company in St. Petersburg, Russia. The article further claimed the FTA official said that after alerting the Pentagon to supposed contract violations, FTA was ordered to ignore the violations and continue payments.
Flight Test Aerospace Inc. (FTA), the company named in the article, states without equivocation or reservation that it has never expressed a company-sanctioned or company-approved opinion to any U.S. government authority concerning the mishandling of funds by the Army or its management of Mi-17 refurbishment contracts. FTA has no knowledge of any fraud, waste or abuse that this claim of mishandling suggests.
Finally, FTA was never directed by the U.S. government to pay a St. Petersburg company any funds. Any and all payments within the contract in which FTA participated were approved by the government for disbursement. If any individuals within FTA made such claims, they did so of their own volition and without expressed written or verbal permission from me or the board.
FARHAD ABID
Chief executive officer
Flight Test Aerospace Inc.
Chantilly
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