The weekly Euro reports in its Oct. 30 edition that Letecké opravny Malešice, the company the ministry tapped to prepare the project's tender, is using two other companies that are widely expected to bid for the eventual contract as consultants.

One is Deloitte, which is advising on legal and economic issues associated with the tender, and the other is BDO IT, which is consulting on technical aspects, Euro writes. The companies declined comment Tuesday.

Moreover, Letecké opravny Malešice has named IT specialist Antonín Carda to oversee the tender; Carda worked briefly at the Defense Ministry and before that had worked for Deloitte for years as an IT expert.

If authorities substantiate the magazine's claims, the Defense Ministry could be ordered to find another company to draft the tender.

In an interview with The Prague Post, a ministry source defended Letecké opravny Malešice.

The company "is a state enterprise that has information system services on its agenda. That's one of the company's tasks," Andrej Čírtek said. "I will not comment on who is working for the company. You have to turn to their spokeswoman."

Asked about Carda's connections to Deloitte, Čírtek said, "To say that a person worked at one place, and now works at another, and that this alone is bad, it's nonsense to come to that conclusion. In Israel, one can be a soldier, then entrepreneur, then politician, and you don't hear anybody speaking about murky activities."

Letecké opravny Malešice officials could not be reached for comment.

The ministry's proposed information system is a vast network meant to interconnect all military and ministry communication and data systems. Euro writes that currently many of the different systems cannot communicate with one another.

A detailed 20 million Kč audit of the Defense Ministry was to precede the information system tender. But Minister Jiří Šedivý has postponed the audit several times — without stating a reason.

Deloitte and BDO IT were among those bidding to do the audit work as well.

The information system contract is expected to go up for bid next spring.