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The annual plan is supposed to carry what the forces need now. 'In drawing up this plan for 2024 and 2025, reliance was placed essentially on the needs submitted by the armed forces in the period 2021-2023', with a further '18 per cent of procurements (15 of 86) planned on the basis of decisions taken by the defence resources council or the ministry on newly arisen needs not satisfied in earlier periods' (p.16). The following year the drift is wider still: 'in 2025, 44 per cent (25 of 57) of procurements were entered in the agency's public procurement plan on the basis not of the planning manual but of decisions of the councils and the ministry and a new need submitted by the general staff' (p.17). The money attached to those needs is estimated rather than known: the general staff 'states that, in order to identify the prices of measures available on the market, it has no possibility of carrying out a market analysis, and therefore gives preliminary prices for armaments and military equipment which may change' (p.17) - and the funding requirement for a given project in the planning manual is then calculated from exactly those preliminary prices. A plan assembled from stale needs and unverifiable prices cannot tell anyone whether the money will buy what the forces are waiting for.

• Function: Planning, Product/service purchase, Governance
• Value: Regulatory system, Finance, Domain knowledge
• Stakeholders: Management, Policy setter, Operator
• Quality: Reliable, integrated information base Clear objectives and goal-setting

The rule is four years and the practice is nearly ten. Development directions 'are set out in capability development plans and must be reviewed at least every four years' (p.19). In February 2023 NATO approved more ambitious political guidelines reflecting the changed geopolitical situation and demanding higher readiness of member states' forces; nevertheless 'of the 16 capabilities connected with acquisitions of armaments and military equipment, 13 are still being developed under capability development plans prepared or updated in 2017-2021' (p.19). The table that follows dates them one by one: ground manoeuvre 2018, indirect fire support 2017, intelligence and surveillance 2017, military engineering 2017, special operations 2018, territorial defence 2018 (p.19). What is not measured cannot show the gap closing: no indicators have been set for the level each capability must reach or by when, and the level currently reached is not recorded. The strategic indicators that do exist are missed more often than not at the start of the period - 4 of 7 in 2023, then 2 of 13 in 2024 and 3 of 13 in 2025 (p.18).

• Function: Strategy, Planning, Security
• Value: Regulatory system, Assets
• Stakeholders: Policy setter, Mandating authority, Management
• Quality: Clear objectives and goal-setting Functioning oversight and governance Effective state

Bodies set up to advise ended up deciding. 'In 45 per cent (14 of 31) of procurements, the defence resources council, the defence resources group and the armaments and military equipment group took part in taking the decisions' (p.23), and the audit's verdict on that is unusually direct: the practice whereby 'the minuted decisions of advisory groups are implemented without a further decision of the authorised subject does not comply with the principles of public administration and is to be regarded as overstepping the limits of these bodies' competence, because they are in fact granted decision-making power' (p.24). Two consequences follow. Decisions of real size were taken this way - the acquisition of driving and collective training simulators for the infantry fighting vehicles and additional training equipment, worth EUR 15.4 million, was decided under exemptions by the armaments and military equipment group (summary, p.9). And because these bodies are advisory in law, nothing obliges their members to declare a private interest in the procurement they are deciding; no such obligation is laid down for them. Responsibility that cannot be located cannot be called to account.

• Function: Governance, Regulations, Product/service purchase
• Value: Regulatory system
• Stakeholders: Governing body, Mandating authority, Management, Policy setter
• Quality: Clear objectives and goal-setting Functioning oversight and governance Sound risk management

Consultation inside the ministry is treated as a control. It is also the longest thing in the process. 'In 42 per cent (13 of 31) of the procurements analysed, the taking of these decisions lasted from 30 to 374 days, the median being 36 days' (p.24), and the comparison the report draws is with the recommended maximum for the entire international procurement process, 180 to 240 calendar days. One coordination step, at its worst, took longer than the whole procedure is supposed to take from beginning to end. The reason given is structural rather than accidental: there are no established time limits for coordination, nor rules on when the contracting authority may consult advisory bodies, on the criteria for doing so, or on those bodies' responsibilities in the process. The ministry and the agency regard the consultations as checks on the legality of decisions and on whether financial commitments may be entered into; 'in the auditors' assessment, such organisation of work reduces the commission's independence, increases the scope of coordination and prolongs the procurement procedures' (p.23).

• Function: Governance, Product/service purchase, Planning
• Value: Regulatory system
• Stakeholders: Management, Oversight, Policy setter
• Quality: Streamlined, standardized processes Efficient office Clear objectives and goal-setting

Money arrived faster than the people to spend it. 'At the end of 2025 there were 35 vacant posts at the agency, 20 of them in the structural units carrying out acquisitions' (p.25), and the reason recorded is not budgetary: posts stay unfilled because of 'unproductive selections - either no candidates come forward, or candidates do not score the required number of points in the competition' (p.25). Over the audit period the establishment barely moved and the workforce shrank: 'the number of approved posts increased by only 8, and the number of filled posts fell by 4' (p.25). The consequence is stated as a flat fact: 'although the budget of the national defence system and the number of planned procurements have grown in recent years, because of the shortage of staff the number of armament and military equipment procurements completed has not increased for a second year' (p.25). Of the twenty acquisition divisions, ten deal with armaments and military equipment, and 46 per cent of the agency's procurement staff work in them (p.25). An acquisition system whose throughput is fixed by recruitment cannot absorb a doubling of its budget, whatever the plans say.

• Function: Human resources, Planning, Product/service purchase
• Value: Human capital, Finance
• Stakeholders: Management, Staff, Policy setter
• Quality: Adequate resources and competences Efficient office Effective state

The efficiency figures exist and they are the wrong figures. Armament procurement is not measured separately, because 'efficiency indicators are calculated collectively for all procurements carried out by the agency' (summary, p.4) - and without disaggregating, what the aggregate conceals is this: in armament and military equipment procurement the share of failed procurements grew from 24 per cent in 2023 to 'the 59 per cent (60 of 101) mark' in 2025, where the figure for procurement as a whole moved from 24.3 to 16.3 per cent against a target of no more than 15 (p.26). The averaging goes further down. Reporting to the ministry, the agency combines several international-procurement indicators that carry different recommended durations, from 120 to 240 calendar days, 'and calculates one average duration for all of them: reporting for 2025, the agency stated that the average duration of an international procurement is 110 calendar days, while 31.8 per cent of procurements did not meet the generally recommended durations' (p.30). One indicator is simply wrong by construction: where the winning supplier offers half the planned price, the formula for 'correspondence of planned procurement funds to the offer price' returns 100 per cent (p.30). Almost half of all armament procurement, the part run under exemptions, is not monitored at all. Decision-makers are therefore given comparable, current, meaningless numbers.

• Function: Governance, Planning
• Value: Regulatory system, Domain knowledge
• Stakeholders: Management, Oversight, Policy setter
• Quality: Reliable, integrated information base Functioning oversight and governance Clear objectives and goal-setting

The system is built to equip the country for a war, and has no way of buying anything faster once one starts. 'Mobilisation, a state of war or a state of emergency do not of themselves disapply the provisions of the public procurement statutes' (p.30). What exists instead is a mobilisation plan setting out the agency's actions and officials' functions, and nothing beneath it: 'a detailed mechanism for organising and carrying out acquisitions of armaments and military equipment, ensuring more simplified processes, faster acquisition, responsibilities and a decision-making procedure in the event of mobilisation, war or a state of emergency, has not been established' (p.31). The one relief the law does provide for those circumstances is about plumbing: if the central procurement information system or the e-invoice system fails so that the authority and the supplier cannot exchange information, other compliant electronic means may be used and invoices may be submitted other than electronically (p.31). The flexibilities the directive and the national statute do offer are real but are not tied to mobilisation or war at all. The ministry proposed amendments in 2026, after the audit (summary, p.9).

• Function: Security, Regulations, Planning
• Value: Regulatory system
• Stakeholders: Policy setter, Lawmaker, Management
• Quality: Effective state Streamlined, standardized processes Sound risk management

Exemptions are not the margin of this system; they are close to half of it. In 2023-2025 the agency concluded under them '62 contracts for the acquisition of armaments and military equipment, with a total value of EUR 3,396.5 million. This amounted to 48 per cent (62 of 129) of all armament and military equipment contracts concluded' and 40 per cent of their value, EUR 3,396.5 million of EUR 8,653.2 million (pp.33-34). Ten of them, worth EUR 1,409 million, were examined. All ten fell within cases the statute allows. Then: in seven of the ten, possible alternatives, efficiency and the reasonableness of prices were not assessed - two were negotiated with named suppliers, and five were running contracts with the United States government where what was signed was an amendment to a contract concluded 14 to 30 years earlier (summary, pp.5-6). The government itself narrowed the field in two of its three decisions, permitting acquisition of drones from named manufacturers producing or assembling in Lithuania without stating technical specifications (p.34), which concentrates manufacturing expertise on particular firms rather than spreading it. Justifying a ten-year-old acquisition by continuity of contract, without testing what the market now offers, is how a price stops being a price.

• Function: Product/service purchase, Regulations, Governance
• Value: Regulatory system, Finance, Assets
• Stakeholders: Policy setter, Management, Supplier
• Quality: Cost control and value for money Sound risk management Functioning oversight and governance

Declaring a private interest is required; saying which procurement you are working on is apparently not. In the procurements run under exemptions, staff 'had submitted declarations of private interests, but in 53 per cent (58 of 110) of cases (in 10 procurements) the persons' did not indicate their involvement in the procurement in any form (p.37). The same pattern runs through procurement conducted under ordinary law: 'in 14 (of 21) procurements checked, cases were identified (71 of 166) where persons involved in the initiation of the procurement and in its other stages, although they had submitted declarations of private interests, did not indicate in any form their involvement in the procurement process' (p.44). Among them are people who choose the winner - in 5 of the 21 procurements, members of the selection committees had filed a declaration but had not declared their participation in the public procurement, which the statute on the reconciliation of public and private interests requires (summary, p.7). In a further 5.5 per cent of cases, six of 110, individuals signed confidentiality undertakings after the procurement procedures had already begun (summary, p.6). The audit traces the cause to the absence of minimum requirements or standardised procedures for the procurements the defence and security statute does not cover (p.38), and the risk it names is of non-transparent procurement at a moment when the money is growing fastest.

• Function: Governance, Regulations, Product/service purchase
• Value: Regulatory system, Human capital
• Stakeholders: Staff, Management, Oversight, Supplier
• Quality: Functioning oversight and governance Sound risk management Reliable, integrated information base

What is called project management here is the administration of purchases. The 2026-2035 planning manual names 29 high-priority acquisition projects; the agency managed 19 in 2025, 13 of them matching that list, and five were examined (pp.50-51). Those five run 'from 3 to 14 years, and their fixed value from EUR 9.77 million to EUR 1.5 billion' (p.51). In none of them was there a plan: 'in none of the projects analysed were implementation plans drawn up setting out all the project's activities, the responsibilities assigned for carrying them out and the deadlines' (p.51). Nobody owned them either - 'no person was appointed responsible for the initiation and coordination of the whole project rather than of an individual procurement' - and nothing was costed at the outset: 'nor was a preliminary project value calculated, and the life-cycle costs of armaments and military equipment and the costs of installing and maintaining infrastructure were not assessed' (p.51). The auditors' own summary of it is that 'such practice corresponds more to the administration of procurements than to project management' (p.51). The cost of not costing shows up in the largest of them: on the tank project, 'taking into account the values of all contracts already concluded and planned, the project's value grew by 33 per cent from 2025' (p.52). No progress reporting was planned in any of the five, and risks to the project as a whole were never identified or managed (p.52).

• Function: Project methodology, Planning, Governance, Product/service purchase
• Value: Finance, Assets, Regulatory system
• Stakeholders: Management, Oversight, Policy setter, Supplier
• Quality: Cost control and value for money Sound risk management Functioning oversight and governance Clear objectives and goal-setting