It was currently cheaper for South Africa to buy ships from other production lines than to have a local production line not working, the SA Navy chief told the portfolio committee on defence on Wednesday. "During the sanctions era we did build our own ships, but it takes time and capacity to rebuild the ship-building infrastructure," Vice-Admiral Johan Retief said during his briefing on transformation and integration in the navy.

In response to why the navy was not building its own ships, he said if it was possible for South Africa to build one ship every year for 30 years, it would be possible to replenish most of the fleet every 30 years, "the classic" lifespan of ships. Retief said that one of the challenges facing the navy was the acceptance into service of the four new corvettes and the three submarines procured as part of the arms deal. Besides capacity building in terms of trained staff, "the nine month delay in getting the corvettes to South Africa because of defective cabling is creating a lot of problems. The navy budgeted for delivery this year and not next year, and we have had to shift funds and bring back the crews from Germany".

He said the first ship had been scheduled to arrive in February, but would now only arrive in December. "Instead of receiving the four ships at six month intervals, the delays will now mean that the navy will receive all four ships in an eight month period, which will be extremely difficult to handle." However, the delay gave the navy an opportunity to train more personnel. Asked whether women would be allowed to serve on the new submarines, Retief said the current navy ruling was that women could not serve on submarines. "The subs are too basic for women to serve in, but the new submarines are a different kettle of fish and women will probably be allowed to serve on them."

Other challenges facing the navy were its capacity, with it currently "1 000 below authorised strength". The non-adherence to transformation principles were also a problem, but Retief stressed that this related more to "process transformation than to people transformation". The legacy systems inherited from the past had also caused headaches, because the disposing of old ships was a major operation. "When the ships were bought 40 to 50 years ago, they didn't have computers and all were hand operated. We had to get in retired warrant officers to find out what was lying in the stores because we couldn't dispose of anything that might be used in future."

With acknowledgement to Sapa.