Publication	Business Day
Date	2011-07-06
Reporter	Wallace Mayne - Letters Correspondent
Web Link	www.bday.co.za

If the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) Western Cape dandy, Tony Yengeni, is not feeling like a fool ­ given the latest revelations of the amount of money sloshing around SA’s criminal arms deal ­ then it appears that after 500 years, trinkets have lost none of their allure.

A 5% discount on a mall-crawler that loses a quarter of its value when it rolls off the forecourt suggests the currency of shiny beads still remains valid, and no doubt had the colonial arms dealers sniggering into their G&Ts at London’s Reform Club *1 about how cheaply an MK fighter sells out for.

To give Fana Hlongwane credit ­ beyond the alleged hundreds of millions of rand paid in "bonuses" by BAE ­ he at least recognised the importance of the South African arms deal for the future of the Hawk training jets.

SA then was the only deal in town and if BAE had not secured the sale of the 1960s technology to "modernise" SA’s air force, then the production line would have closed, and so with it any chance of "competing" for the Indian arms deal.

In the event, the Hawks production line was thrown a lifeline by the South African arms deal that kept it moving, and in 2004 India bought 66 Hawks, and in 2010 a further 57 Hawks were purchased.

Such foresight no doubt comes with a premium for BAE.

But what probably raised more than a chuckle at the Reform Club’s bar was SA’s audacity in naming its alleged "elite crime-fighting unit" The Hawks. I am told the English enjoy irony.

Wallace Mayne
Troyeville

With acknowledgements to Business Day and Wallace Mayne.

My genes are 74% English, 25% Scottish and 1% street, but these Brit trough fillers disgust me infinitely more than the Yengenis, Shaiks, Hlongwanes, Pierces, Zumas, Charters, Matherss, Swans, Ellingfords, Molois, Molais, Modises, Deetlefss, Spains, Simple-Anderssons, Bredenkamps, Goergadiss, McDonalds, inter alia trough feeders.

But it's good to see a bit of intelligence coming back into the Arms Deal debate - the place where it all started.

Apart from the R60 billion cost of the Arms Deal (make than R600 billion in lifecycle costs), just think of Denel.

Denel cost this country's taxpayers several hundred billion to set up.

At first it did us proud (actually when it was still Armscor) and built and delivered the materiel for an entire world-class defence force of 150 000 men who took on and whipped FAPLA and their East German, Russian and Cuban masters (shame about the Mirages).

Yet now after the Arms Deal Denel firstly sells the family silver and then slouches off with its tail between its legs to beg R5 billion from Parliament every year to keep it solvent (where does all this money actually go?).

Yet Atlas Aviation, later Denel Nicampoop Corporation built nearly 240 Impala trainer and strike jets for the SAAF, all licensed from Aermacci of Italy. It was capitalised and geared to make and maintain these low cost jets with taxpayers' funds.

Aermacchi's new MD339 was just a newer 1990s model in the range and the Nicampoop's could easily have at least sourced and maintained the aircraft, even if the quantity of 24 was too low to undertake licensed manufacture.

Actually Aermacci's price for its MD339 was so low because it actually had some flyable aircraft (white tails) ready to go after a slight over-production on another deal.

An it's true that the Hawk is 1960s technology, except a strange thing happened in the Arms Deal where the SAAF ordered the Hawk 100, but ended up getting and paying for the Hawk 120. Did the Auditor-General pick upon that?

The MD339 was not only substantially less expensive than the BAE Hawks, about 45%, but it flies much more like a modern jet fighter (like a Gripen or F16) than a flying goose.

Modise and his mates Hlongwane and Chippy Shaik, all aided and abetted by Thabo Mbeki, Ronnie Kasrils, Alec Erwin, Stella Stigau and crew, claimed the BAE Hawk had higher military value because it had hard points for the affixing of weapons. Well firstly this was not a specified SAAF requirement and secondly, even if it was, even the Nicampoops could have modified the MD339 to carry an air-to-air missile on each wing and possibly a couple of dumb 250 kg bombs (which now work really well with their GPS guidance collars and fins).