Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The South African Navy wants to spend billions more of taxpayers’ money on patrol ships – because the hugely expensive corvettes they bought to monitor the country’s seas are not ready or up for the job.

This has emerged from a staff paper commissioned on behalf of Chief of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Johannes Mudimu from, the SA National Defence Force’s (SANDF) Legal Services Division, which states that the navy “urgently and critically” requires the 85m-long multi-purpose hull patrol boats to replace its aging vessels.

The paper also states that the navy’s lack of ability to patrol South African waters has led to the plundering of the country’s marine resources.

The document, which the SANDF yesterday insisted had no official status, also reveals that the navy expects to face strong resistance to its mooted purchase of the “indispensible” ships, because of the backlash that followed government’s previous R30 billion arms deal.

However, it suggests that government could partially fund the purchase of the hulls – the estimated total cost of which runs into billions of rands – with money saved from the “decommissioning of old ships”.

The corvettes cost about R6 billion. Each hull is expected to cost a minimum R300 million.

Defence spokesperson Sam Mkhwanazi yesterday claimed the document, which was sent to Mudimu from SANDF Chief of Legal Services Major General SB Mmono in June this year, was a 2003 “academic study” conducted by a legal services staff member “in his personal capacity”.

But the document, which is in possession of Independent Newspapers, includes numerous references to events, papers and conferences which occurred well after 2003.

It also confirms that the document was commissioned on behalf of the chief of the navy. Mkhwanazi claimed, however, that the reference to “commissioning” might be as a “result of a misunderstanding of that word”.

Mkhwanazi declined to respond to questions about the document, including its statement that the corvettes and submarines purchased as part of arms deal would only come into service in 2012, six years after the 2006 date given by government for when the corvettes would be “operationally ready”.

At the time that the corvettes were purchased, government claimed that they would be used, among other functions, to conduct “regular patrols for the protection of our marine resources against poaching and pollution in our Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ)”.

The staff paper now states that the limited budgets experienced by the navy, as a result of the huge arms deal costs, had left it unable to patrol this 1.3 million sq/km.

According to the SANDF’s legal services department, given the area’s size and “massive potential in terms of fish, mineral and fossil wealth, the failure to patrol (one cannot control without patrol) is a departure from international trends verging on dereliction of duty”.

This lack of control had led to “the unrestricted plundering of valuable resources like the Patagonian tooth fish,” the document stated.

The SANDF’s legal department has, however, sought to downplay the navy’s responsibility for this situation.

In the document, it insists that the navy has an “indirect responsibility” in conducting air and surface patrols of South African waters and claims it is “incorrect” to state that the defence force has a responsibility to manage the country’s marine resources.

While admitting that the navy had “historically” conducted patrols of South Africa’s seas, the memo stated that downsizing and severe budget cuts – caused largely by the massive arms deal expenditure – had left it a “shadow of its original force structure with a number of ‘gaps’ apparent in its capacity”.

The paper concluded that a possible solution to securing the EEZ, re-building the navy’s credibility, and justifying the patrol boat expenditure, lay in establishing a coast guard within the navy.

“The answer therefore logically lies in a redefinition of the role of the navy, especially in peacetime.

“From a political point of view there is no question that politicians, especially after the whole defence arms acquisition furore, require the so-called ‘bang for buck’.

“The SA Navy, seriously suffering a serious lack of credibility, has yet to pay its way. The SA Navy is convinced that a South African coast guard must be established as a separate flotilla,” it stated.

Speaking to Independent Newspapers yesterday, Democratic Alliance spokesperson on the arms deal Eddie Trent yesterday said the paper’s revelations “come as no surprise”.

“With each passing month and year it becomes more obvious how misguided and plain incompetent it was of the ANC government to purchase enormously expensive, highly sophisticated weapons without proper forethought.”

“They could have done without the submarines and bought cheaper corvettes from Spain. We did not need the Gripens or the Hawks.

“By saving billions, we could then have had the finances to purchase the vessels that the navy is now requesting.”