SA needs good military force, which takes time and money, say ministers
Trade and Industry Editor

Two senior cabinet ministers went on the offensive yesterday to defend government's controversial R52,7bn arms-for-investment deal and to justify last month's cabinet decision not to exercise an option to cancel the purchase of 12 more fighter jets.

Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said that only if the country's finances had been in a desperate state would the cabinet have opted out from the second tranche of arms purchases for 12 Hawk aircraft.

This R2bn purchase was approved because SA's finances had improved in recent years.

Erwin noted that had a decision been made to cancel the order, the consequence would have been higher finance costs and higher prices for existing arms orders, as both the cost of aircraft and the cost of financing go down for larger orders.

"Our original decision as government was to re-equip the national defence force we were and we remain committed to that," he said. Erwin said that when the arms deal was originally negotiated it had been feared government would have encountered payment difficulties in 2004 and 2007 because of the "bunching" of debt payments.

However, that threat had subsided and so there is now no fear that SA would be unable to meet its payment obligations.

"There is no reason whatever to consider in any meaningful way the possibility of not taking the second tranche," he said.

Lekota said government was committed to equipping SA's armed forces so they could deal with a threat of war or with other demands such as peacekeeping or combatting piracy at sea.

He noted that there was normally a long time lag between placing an order for new military hardware and receiving delivery.

"When you need it, it must be there," he said. "Defence procurement is not like going in to a shop to buy soap it takes years.

"None of us could have predicted September 11th it came quite without warning."

To illustrate the potential threat, he suggested that Al-Qaeda had a budget higher than that of some nations and that some drugs syndicates had better ships than those of the SA navy.

He said that if SA were to allow its fleets of aircraft or vessels to disappear it would be far more costly to restore the same levels of equipment from scratch.

However, he accepted government had been forced to cut corners in its arms procurement programme, as there were other pressing claims on the national budget. "Government did prioritise other national interests above this," he said.

Lekota blamed the poor state of SA's military equipment on the previous regime and suggested that one reason the apartheid government had agreed to negotiate with the African National Congress was because it no longer had a viable defence force. But he also noted that defence spending had fallen as a proportion of government's budget from 9% in 1994 to 6% now.

"This government has cut the defence budget and 94% is devoted to other things. There is a public impression that 50% of the budget is spent on defence and that is distorted."

Lekota said it had been decided that in the run-up to the approval of the arms purchase programme "the national defence force was facing block obsolescence in seven strategic areas of its main equipment, due to the effect of continued sanctions.

"For those who may think we no longer need a defence force, may I remind you that a well trained, well-equipped defence force can prevent war."

With acknowledgements to John Fraser and Business Day.