Defence Minister Joe Modise this week aborted a planned cabinet discussion on the purchase of four naval corvettes because he feared the proposal would be given the thumbs down.

"He needs more time to lobby support for the programme," a source close to the cabinet said this week.

The defence force recommended at the last cabinet meeting that the Spanish tender, from shipyard Bazan, be approved over the British tender from Yarrow shipyard.

The proposal was strongly contested by ANC cabinet ministers who complained that they had not been consulted on aspects of the tender.

Sources in the president's office said that the night before this week's cabinet meeting, President Nelson Mandela had expressed the view that the corvette programme should be scrapped.

"He felt that it was not one of the new government's priorities," a source said. 

However, he had been persuaded by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and other ministers that the matter should be more thoroughly discussed and investigated.

"Either way, if the programme is to be scrapped or approved, Mr. Mandela was convinced that more discussion should precede a decision," a source said.

It was in this context that Mr. Modise asked the cabinet to postpone discussion on the corvettes to a cabinet meeting in a couple of weeks' time.

"If it had gone for a decision this week, it would have been defeated. Those arguing against the corvettes are using very emotional arguments against more logical ones. Modise needs more time to speak to people," the source said.

Although the Spanish tender has been recommended by the defence force to the cabinet, the controversy surrounding the corvette programme has encouraged the other shipyards to start lobbying decision makers in the hope that they will be reconsidered.

Representatives from Britain's Yarrow shipyard and the Danish shipyard Svenborg flew in this week to lobby ministers.

Meanwhile the Spanish government has expressed concern that a delay in the decision and a possible reopening of the tender process would give its disqualified competitors an unfair second advantage.

NP members of the cabinet are unanimous that the corvette programme should be supported, while the ANC ranks from MP to ministerial level are split.

During a parliamentary defence committee meeting this week, ANC MP Thenjiwe Mthintso said that government should stop the project until there had been further discussion on South Africa's defence needs.

With acknowledgement to Edyth Bulbring and Sunday Times.