The Peruvian government will acquire a new transport aircraft with funds intended for the purchase of An-178.

Militarnyi reports.

Vicente Romero, Peruvian Interior Minister, has announced plans to resume an aviation acquisition program for the National Police of Peru.

The Ministry of the Interior is considering purchasing a new transport aircraft for funds that were allocated to buy the An-178. The Peruvian authorities unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and returned more than $64 million allocated through a letter of credit for the purchase of a Ukrainian-made aircraft. The Peruvian government canceled the contract due to the expired construction period.

“A few days ago we returned $64 million and we are going to buy a new plane,” Interior Minister Romero said.

Contract issues

In 2019, Antonov State Enterprise with an An-178 aircraft won an open tender for the purchase of a cargo plane for the Peruvian Police. The delivery period of the aircraft was to be 24 months after the signing of the agreement.

Nevertheless, the agreement faced some issues once the National Bank of Peru blocked payments to the Ukrainian Antonov enterprise.

On April 22, 2020, the Banco de la Nación bank, under strange circumstances, refused to accept a bank agreement from the German bank DZ Bank AG for payments to Spetstechnoexport company of the first payment of $19.2 million.

Spetstekhnoexport then stated that the solution to the financing problem did not depend on the Ukrainian side, but was associated with the rejection of the bank guarantee of the German institution by state and private banks in Peru.

Due to the lack of money from the customer, the construction of the aircraft was financed by the working capital of the Antonov plant, slowing the construction process.

Militarnyi earlier reported that as of February 1, 2021, the state-owned Antonov enterprise had never received any funds for the construction of the aircraft.

However, at the end of 2021, information appeared about the possible introduction of penalties by the Peruvian government for Ukrainian enterprises due to the disruption of the supply of An-178, the deadline for delivery of which was October 23, 2021 according to the agreement.

This bizarre story could have continued, however the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine finally disrupted the work of Antonov and put an end to the possible renewal of the contract.