The SA Navy is now expected to receive the first of its four new patrol corvette platforms nine months after the scheduled delivery date.

The acquisition of the vessels is part of the SA National Defence Force's controversial multibillion-rand re-equipping programme. European SA Corvette Consortium, which was contracted to build the corvettes, said in January that the delay had been caused by faulty electrical cabling supplied to the shipbuilders.

SA representative for the consortium Sven Muller said at that stage that the delay, resulting from the need to replace the cabling, would be minimal, and that delivery was imminent.

Under the proposed revised schedule, however, the first platform the SAS Amatola is now expected to arrive for the planned outfitting with its combat system in Simon's Town in the fourth quarter of this year, says the consortium. The original delivery date was December 28 last year. "When our standard quality testing procedures showed that some of the cabling on the SAS Amatola was not performing to the exacting norms agreed with the SA government and Navy, the shipyards Blohm & Voss and Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft immediately decided to replace them all," said Hamburg's Blohm & Voss shipyard CEO Herbert von Nitzsch.

"We are currently in the process of doing so on the SAS Amatola and the second corvette, the SAS Isandlwana, which is less affected because cabling had not been completed when the underperformance was located."

The consortium declined to implicate the party responsible for the supply of the faulty cables, but it was believed that Siemens, which was earlier thought to be involved, had been exonerated from blame. The consortium is to discuss implications from the revised delivery timetable with the SA government this month.

With acknowledgements to Carli Lourens and Business Day.