A damning audit report has exposed catastrophic failures by Cyprus police in a €1.8 million contract to protect critical infrastructure from drone threats, with seven years of botched procurement leaving facilities exposed.
The Audit Office report catalogues two failed attempts to procure anti-drone systems between 2018 and 2025, with the project still not implemented despite its importance for critical infrastructure.
The report reveals police excluded suppliers from the US, Israel and Canada with advanced equipment, whilst the chosen contractor selected a manufacturer that subsequently went bankrupt.
The Audit Office said untrained staff handled public procurement procedures, and the system failed even basic drone detection tests.
Auditor General Andreas Papaconstantinou noted deficiencies in police planning, as specific timelines were not set for each phase, making it difficult to monitor progress and impose delay penalties.
The requirement for previous experience only at airports in EU member states or the UK unjustifiably limited competition and excluded projects in other technologically advanced countries.
The contractor’s technical and professional capacity was not adequately documented, the report said.
Critical information, including the country where previous contracts were executed and the manufacturer’s actual operational capability and long-term support capacity, was not fully verified.
Discrepancies were found between submitted technical leaflets and the manufacturer’s official publications.
Complaints from other bidders about the contractor’s inadequate technical basis were not thoroughly investigated despite concerning a national security project and were ultimately proven correct, the report said.
Contract implementation was characterised by successive extensions without substantial progress.
The auditor said the most critical finding concerns the absence of systematic monitoring. For almost three years the contracting authority had no clear picture of the project’s progress or interim confirmations of system functionality.
This practice proved completely wrong, as only when the first acceptance tests were carried out at the final stage was it found that the systems did not meet technical requirements, failing even basic drone detection scenarios.
After repeated tests also failed, the contract was terminated in April 2025, and guarantees were seized.
Papaconstantinou described as unacceptable the continued operational gap and absence of protection for the republic’s critical infrastructure.
After more than seven years and two failed tenders, critical infrastructure still lacks protection systems against drone threats, with project implementation currently having an indefinite timeframe.
The protection systems involve two essentially independent cooperating systems: a detection system for unmanned aerial vehicles and a jamming system.
Police did not conduct adequate research into documenting the contractor’s capabilities to execute the contract during the tender evaluation stage, the audit found.
The Audit Office recommended that tenders for specialised critical systems concerning national security should include a requirement for a minimum satisfactory number of permanent employees of the manufacturer with duties related to the contract object.
The contractor declared four staff members, whilst another interested company declared 10 and 12.
The specified drone frequencies that the system should detect were those used by standardised drones that could be bought in shops.
The participation criterion for successful completion in the previous five years of at least one contract at a civil or military airport in an EU member state or the UK worth over €500,000 excluded projects implemented in countries such as the US, Israel and Canada, which were far more technologically advanced and sensitive to this issue both militarily and civilly than European countries, which had minimal expertise in the area until then.
The contractor’s chosen manufacturer, A, had to be replaced with manufacturer B, as manufacturer A was in bankruptcy proceedings, unable to execute current or pending contracts, and had ceased conducting any work from September 2023.
“Gaps and weaknesses can be prevented through training of police members handling public procurement procedures, a need that has also emerged through our service’s audits of various police tender documents and procedures. The main problems are due to incorrect application or lack of information on legislative procedures and provisions, mainly by specification preparation committees and evaluation committees, but also in some cases police refusal to adopt recommendations from other involved parties, including our service, to avoid unnecessary delays,” the report concluded.
After the contract was terminated in April 2025, police seized the advance payment guarantee of €497,056 and the performance guarantee of €82,842. No other payment was made to the contractor beyond the advance.