While Simon's Town Naval Base is hard at work arming and testing the Defence Force's new corvettes, the Managing Director of CCII Systems, Richard Young, has said that certain aspects of the combat systems currently being used on the ships are a waste of taxpayers' money.

Young played an important role in revealing irregularities in the arms deal for which businessman Schabir Shaik was convicted of corruption and fraud in the Durban High Court last week. He forced the Department of Defence to hand over documents related to the deal after his company lost out on a contract to supply the arms suite for the corvettes. He is currently claiming R150 million from the government.

Young alleges that the combat suite had been acquired at nearly double the allocated ceiling budget because ADS and Thomson-CSF were allowed, "due to interference by Shaik *1", to quote and negotiate for the contract without the type of competition that conventionally accompanies such bids.

Young said that the Navy has effectively been "locked" into a combat system controlled by a French company, with empowerment from an "unskilled" company, FBS, and Shaik's Nkobi Holdings.

"This is going to have major problems for the SA Navy and SA taxpayer in the 30- to 40-year lifespan of the corvettes from the perspective of both cost and reliability," Young asserted.

He said it is too late for CCII's system to be accepted as the combat suites have already been installed.

In future, he said the government should use the existing Armscor and Department of Defence acquisition policy, rules, regulations and statutes, "without wavering from these for political goals or reasons of expediency".

Young said he had come under fire from the Department of Defence and Armscor people involved with the project. Armscor is currently negotiating to take over the management of the Simon's Town Naval Dockyard. "I have been persona non grata with the SA Navy and the Department of Defence since 2000. I have formally been accused of compromising national security when articulating my allegations of irregularities and conflicts of interest."

With acknowledgements to Ian Broughton and Peoples' Post.

*1 Actually I said (and meant) Shamin (Chippy), but it's still true to infer that Schabir had a role in this.