Publication	The Citizen
Date	2012-01-17
Reporter	Paul Kirk
Web Link	www.citizen.co.za

JOHANNESBURG - Jacob Zuma wants an aircraft carrier,   and it will be partly up to convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni to decide who will get the contract to supply a warship potentially costing even more than the four frigates bought as part of the controversial 1999 R60 billion arms deal.

The Citizen can reveal that the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) has formally registered a project to acquire a warship capable of operating more than a dozen helicopters, and possibly also vertical take-off jets.

Codenamed: “Project Millennium” the acquisition is technically temporarily on ice, however navy insiders have said several ships are being closely looked at, including the French- built “Mistrale” warships as well as smaller vessels from Holland and Germany.

The ship would give the SANDF what is called a: “strategic lift” capability – meaning that soldiers and equipment could quickly be ferried to points off foreign countries and then lifted onto land by helicopter.

A spokesman for the South African Navy, Greyling van den Berg, said: “Project Millennium, the acquisition of a strategic lift capability for the SANDF, has been officially deferred until such time as the Defence Review,  being conducted by the Minister of Defence, has been approved by Parliament and promulgated.

“Should the Defence Review stipulate that a strategic sea lift capability is a future requirement of the Department of Defence, the project could be reactivated.  Time scales will depend on when this requirement is required by.”
 
Advocate Paul Hoffman SC, director of the Southern Africa Institute for Accountability said: “The usefulness of the project is … questionable.

If Yengeni remains on the review committee, it could cogently be argued that the success of the project will depend on the size of the bribes.”

Terry Crawford-Browne, chairman of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction said that he thought that proceeding with the acquisition would be “madness”.

With acknowledgements to Paul Kirk and The Citizen.

Actually strategic sea lift is a very good capability for a regional defence force to have - as is strategic air lift.

But one can only have it if one can afford it.

At present the SA Navy cannot afford to operate or maintain its new(ish) frigates and submarines.

At present the SA air Force cannot afford to operate or maintain its new advanced light fighter aircraft.

So the SA Air Force cannot afford the eight Airbus A400M  Loadmasters ordered for it by the SA DoD (without an acquisition process).

So it is difficult to accept that the SA Navy can currently afford even one strategic sea lift vessel, let alone two.

It will be able to do so in time, when national corruption levels reduce by about 90% thus allowing the SANDF and the SAN in particular to get a fair share of the national budget.

Just 3,0%+/-0,5%.

If we can stop this bleed from the national fiscus, there will still be plenty left for housing, healthcare, non toll roads, proper schooling, saving the rhinos, saving the african penguin, clearing invasive alien vegetation, inter alia.