Dear Editor,
It is interesting to note that the US Army has decided to equip its Interim Brigade Combat Teams with LAV-111's of a
similar variant to those being purchased by our government for the New Zealand Defence Force.
They are purchasing 2,131 of these at a cost of US$4Bn. That equates to US$1,877,053 each or NZ$4,578,178 at todays
exchange rate.
New Zealand, on the other hand, is purchasing 105 at a cost in excess of NZ$700M. Now that equates to NZ$6.6M each.
That is a difference of NZ$2M on each LAV or NZ$210M more than necessary.
Even allowing for bulk purchase, this sounds suspiciously like a "rip-off" to me and simply goes to reinforce my often
voiced argument that because of this Government's defence strategy, it is going to cost the country more dearly in
unrelated costs than has been indicated by the Government .
Mirek Marcanik