Two days before government authorities are reportedly scheduled to conclude contracts worth R8 billion for the supply of new military planes, a Cape High Court judge has ordered a temporary embargo on the signing of the deals.

Mr Justice Deon van Zyl granted a 24-hour interim interdict yesterday afternoon that restrains the government from finalising agreements for the buying of between eight and 14 A400M aircraft from European Aeronautical Defence Systems and Airbus Military, following an urgent application by the Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (Ecaar) group.

It is understood that the government intended to sign a declaration of intent to buy the aircraft tomorrow.

But the judge said he would allow the government, which was only served with Ecaar's application this morning, to return to court today to argue against the order.

"But if the government is on the point of signing any deals within the next 24 hours, then the answer is no," the judge told State attorney Babalwa Mantame.

Judge Van Zyl further suggested that the government answer to claims that the planes would be expensive to maintain and asked that it also address the issue of whether "this highly sophisticated military hardware is really necessary".

The Department of Transport said in a statement earlier that the A400M programme would provide South Africa "with the opportunity to meet its growing international obligations, particularly in regard to peacekeeping and support, disaster relief and management, and a range of other civil, commercial and military missions".

Ecaar SA head Terry Crawford-Browne, who represented himself and the group at yesterday afternoon's application against the government and the ministers of transport, public enterprises and defence, claims that the disputed deals are "constitutionally unlawful".

Crawford-Browne said his court application - bought on "behalf of poor people" - was intended to challenge the "negative economic impacts of expenditures on armaments".

In an affidavit before the court, Crawford-Browne also challenged the argument that multimillion-rand arms deals would provide "offsets" that would create thousands of jobs for South African people - and provided half a dozen examples of instances where such benefits had failed to materialise.

According to Crawford-Browne, such offsets were, in reality, "an invitation to corruption".

"Recent testimony in parliament by the Secretary of Defence and senior generals revealed that the South African National Defence Force is in financial crisis because of the costs of the arms deal and consequently cannot afford to maintain even its existing equipment.

"Even more bizarre is the acknowledgement of an equipment mismatch, and that the arms deal acquisitions are quite useless for the SANDF's peacekeeping roles in countries such as Burundi," he said, describing the proposed aircraft purchase as "economically irrational".

With acknowledgements to Karyn Maughan and the Cape Times.