One of the departments that perhaps makes some of the largest purchases and procures the largest dollar-value amount of goods is the Department of National Defence. Recently we saw, within a couple of days after we recessed for the summer, a week-long string of announcements about $17.5 billion in military purchases.
I assume all of that was within the budget, but one in particular seemed to stand out. There was an announcement of a $2.5 billion sole-source untendered purchase of heavy-lift aircraft from Boeing against the recommendations of the actual department.
There was another aspect to it that's quite worrisome: it turns out that on top of this being a sole-source untendered $2.5 billion contract against the advice of the department, there was a multi-year $4 billion service contract attached to it.
Would this sort of thing raise flags?