To what extent, if at all, is RKIK responsible for the fact that the Estonian state may now lose this €70 million?

I will start by saying that one of our main objectives is to help Ukraine – just as we help Moldova and other countries that want to be democratic and are fighting for their freedom. To this end, RKIK carries out a great many procurements, and I want to emphasise that we have actually carried out many, many successful procurements. But indeed, there is one 2024–2025 contract involving advance payments that is now in a situation where the other party has not fulfilled its contractual obligations, and to protect our rights we have now gone to court.

But you made advance payments to a supplier that had never previously supplied this kind of goods, and its background was not checked.

It is difficult for me to comment on that because I was not working at RKIK at the time. That question can certainly be put to RKIK's former management.

I have been familiar with the matter since January. I cannot see inside people's heads to know how they were thinking and what the main arguments behind their decisions were. I can go by what is written down, and I can understand that. And having read those materials, I dare say that I would not have entered into that contract, because in my view it is not right to enter into a contract of this scale and make an advance payment of this size to a company you do not know and which is not itself an ammunition manufacturer.

Have you subsequently been able to establish who was behind that decision?

The decision was made by RKIK's former director general [Magnus-Valdemar Saar].

The National Audit Office also requested those contracts. Do the contracts with this company exist or not? Or why were they unable to be presented to the National Audit Office?

My team tried to locate all the materials from 2024 and 2025 relating to the making of this decision. We have provided all the materials to the National Audit Office, and there are no more materials. The National Audit Office has indeed assessed this as insufficient and said that something is missing. But once again: whatever there was to provide, we certainly provided. RKIK cooperated fully and will continue to do so. I have personally met and spoken several times with Janar Holm and the auditors, so whatever there was to provide, we provided. If something is missing, we are now working to find those missing documents, if that is even possible. I cannot comment on that at the moment.

When did you first realise that the supplier that had been paid was actually unable to deliver the goods?

I can only speak for myself. For me, it became clear in February-March, when we began preparing to terminate the contracts and go to court to protect our rights. That took a little time. And if I remember correctly, in April-May we also filed the relevant claims in court.

Is this €70 million now the final amount, or could it increase or decrease?

That amount is final at present.

You took over as head of RKIK in January this year. Was there already something in the air at that point, or were there already some known problems that could arise?

In my assessment, RKIK's overall financial management principles were not sufficient.

We have made a great many changes and will make more. I became aware of the National Audit Office's conclusions quite early on. I actually wanted to commission a financial audit of RKIK, and I also made that proposal to Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur. But we agreed that since the National Audit Office was conducting an audit anyway, we would not duplicate the work and would wait for the final report. I was able to read a draft of the final report materials in June, and since then we have made many changes and will make more to ensure that RKIK's financial management principles are clear and understandable. And most importantly, that RKIK employees also follow them. In my view, the main issue has been that the existing procedures simply were not followed.

So who is responsible now, or what happens next?

The people who signed the contract are responsible. The contract was signed by RKIK's former director general.

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