Problem

The national system of quality assurance of defense goods, services and works was based on the Soviet principles of the planned economy. This is the so-called system of military representative offices of the Ministry of Defense, which is more commonly known in the industry as “military acceptance”. Under this system, representatives of the Ministry of Defense were stationed at private and state-owned defense industry enterprises to control the process of product manufacture under contracts within the framework of the state defense order. Officials of “military acceptance” were vested with such broad discretionary powers that they even approved the calculations and estimates that determined the cost of manufacture of weapons. They controlled not only the production results, but also the financial and economic decisions of the enterprise. Such excessive discretionary powers often led to a significant increase in the cost of defense products. After all, in addition to the costs of production, the company also had to include contingency corruption costs in the price of the products. The Law of Ukraine On Defense Procurement replaced the military representative offices of the Soviet past with the introduction of a system of state quality assurance for defense products.