Roden Shipyards Granted Extensive Federation Construction Contracts, Competitors Protest
Extensive construction and maintenance contracts have been awarded to Roden Shipyards by a Gallentean Federation Senate subcommittee in a process that has evidently circumvented the usual bidding process. Representatives of rival corporations as well as representatives of watchdog organizations are crying foul and calling for further investigation. According to some reports, these contracts were “rubber stamped” through the bidding process from within Senate oversight committees.
The contracts, valued at a combined 157 billion isk, were awarded to Roden Shipyards for the construction of space-faring vessels and support hardware, stargate manufacture and maintenance, military and combat-support equipment, and a variety of other durable goods equipment, as well as unspecified “support and conjunction services.” Both goods and the services are to be delivered over the next three Yoiul Calendar years.
The awarding of government contracts as extensive and lucrative as the Roden Shipyards contracts usually take months, if not years, to work their way through the Gallentean Senate and its various subcommittees. The pace and apparent secrecy with which the Roden contract was approved has raised suspicions among many that these contracts may have been awarded to Roden, primarily by the influential Senate Trans-stellar Security and Safety Commission, in exchange for future political favors. The STSSC is a Gallentean Federal body tasked with overseeing budget concerns and expenditures for the intersystem travel infrastructure and those assets of the Federal Navy dedicated to domestic security. It is no secret that many in the senate oppose President Foiritan’s budget proposals, specifically the large expenditures slated for unspecified future research and construction, and the STSSC contain some of the President’s most vocal opponents.
Though rumors continue to circulate about possible misdeeds in awarding the Roden contracts, statements issued from the STSSC and other Senate subcommittees responsible for approving the contracts in question claim recent “rapid action initiatives” adopted by the Senate allow them to act on budgetary items with unprecedented speed. Even critics of the Roden Shipyards contract are at a loss when asked about specific examples of wrongdoing, largely because of the confidentiality under which such budgetary decisions are now made.
Much is still unknown about the manner and methods used to approve the contract, owing to recent legislation relating to the Crielere Agreement. Due to recent non-disclosure and copyright protection regulations ratified in the wake of the Crielere Agreement, the exact workings of the various Senate subcommittees have fallen behind a veil of secrecy—secrecy the President says is misplaced.
In a statement from his office in Ladistier, President Souro Foiritan said, “The Crielere Agreement, though critical to the ongoing successes of our collaboration with our friends in the Caldari State, was never intended to safeguard domestic policy. My esteemed colleagues in the Senate are not serving the public trust by obscuring a process which should be open for review. Gallenteans everywhere deserve to know how their government is serving them.”
President Foiritan’s esteemed colleagues do not agree. “The President calling for openness in expenditure disclosure is like a pickpocket calling for the police. Foiritan has been looting the public coffers for whatever new technology presents itself, even untested experimental equipment with no practical application, for quite some time now. Is he jealous that the Senate is using the Gallentean people’s money to serve the Gallentean people directly and immediately? If that’s the case, perhaps he should review the section of his proposed budget dealing with research and development.”
