Surely the whole prog will have to be rebid as this is a significant change to the original contract?
Good point but such shenanigans are common place. Losing bidders (i.e. hadn't a hope in the first place) are usually told to keep quiet or they will be blacklisted. In the days when we had funding, you often found the "losers" were awarded another contract a month or so later, thus maintaining their share of the Defence budget. Happens less these days, for some reason.