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Cape Town - Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu on Wednesday strenuously defended the R800m lease of VIP aircraft, saying using ageing planes risked a repeat of Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe's 2009 crash landing.
Sisulu said the air force could not afford the high cost of servicing an ageing fleet nor could it put the president, his deputy and predecessors in danger.
"The amount of money we are spending on an old fleet is exorbitant. So you have to have in the back of your mind what is cheaper - investing in new aircraft, which is what we are proposing, or continuing with the old aircraft and continuously repairing it," she told a media briefing at parliament.
"You also need to have in the back of your mind... the deputy president of this country had a near-accident two years ago."
Motlanthe "crash-landed" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this prompted a "resolution that we have got to make sure we fly anybody, anybody, even if it is our soldiers, we've got to make sure that we fly them safely".
Defence Secretary Mpumi Mpofu said the air force was spending an untenable amount of its R6bn budget on maintaining old aircraft, partly as a result of the cancellation of the contract for eight Airbus A400 strategic lift aircraft in 2009.
Air force chief Lieutenant-General Carlo Gagiano stressed that it took "a lot of tender loving care" to keep in flight a light transport fleet that was mostly more than 30 years old, and said finding new aircraft for VIPs had become "a necessity".
"We only have two aircraft in our fleet that are younger than 20 years old. That is the president's aircraft at the moment and the PC12 single turbo prop aircraft."
Gagiano said VIPs were usually flown across Africa at night, and pilots had to contend with "very violent weather", poor infrastructure and frequent refuelling stops.
"So therefore to land in the middle of the night on the continent - and the minister alluded to one incident we had - is really looking for trouble and it makes life for our principals very uncomfortable.
"It is also very tiring and it takes a long time. I can remember one flight we had to do with a reserve force aircraft to South America. I think we had like six refuelling stops, and that cannot work.
"So this is a necessity. You can't add cost to this because again this VVIP is the frontline of our defence. Wherever we go, wherever we engage, our politicians engage first."
Motlanthe was returning from an African Union summit in Libya when the DC-9 he was travelling in overshot an unlit runway and burst a tyre when it made an emergency landing in the DRC at night to refuel.
He is usually flown in a Falcon 900, which also provides back-up services to Zuma. This 19-year-old aircraft can reportedly fly only 2 500 nautical miles before refuelling, but still has a better range than the DC-9.
Though the incident in the DRC was downplayed at the time, Sisulu made it plain on Wednesday that it was serious and one of the main arguments for finding new VIP planes.
Said Mpofu: "It is actually quite important that we keep to a zero incident standard in the aircraft and the aviation industry, but more importantly when we are dealing with VVIPs."
Sisulu stressed that the money would not come out of the R35bn defence budget, which she described as "completely inadequate".
"The R800m will not be coming from my money, it will be coming from Treasury. So I will not be taking any money from any soldier."
Defence sources said the minister would have preferred buying new aircraft but could not afford to, and Mpofu also indicated that leasing was not the best option in the long run.
"Quite clearly we reached a point where it became not economically viable to continue with the ongoing expensive lease operations that would ensure an increase in those costs without sustaining what is really a viable service that needs to be provided."
She said the Treasury's ability to actually deal with this matter came from rescheduling funds that had been "allocated for the delivery of certain of the aviation packages".
Sisulu confirmed that South Africa had secured a full refund on the cancelled Airbus contract, but was still negotiating the number of instalments in which it would recover R29bn paid before the deal was scrapped because of soaring costs.
Sisulu said the air force could not afford the high cost of servicing an ageing fleet nor could it put the president, his deputy and predecessors in danger.
"The amount of money we are spending on an old fleet is exorbitant. So you have to have in the back of your mind what is cheaper - investing in new aircraft, which is what we are proposing, or continuing with the old aircraft and continuously repairing it," she told a media briefing at parliament.
"You also need to have in the back of your mind... the deputy president of this country had a near-accident two years ago."
Motlanthe "crash-landed" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this prompted a "resolution that we have got to make sure we fly anybody, anybody, even if it is our soldiers, we've got to make sure that we fly them safely".
Defence Secretary Mpumi Mpofu said the air force was spending an untenable amount of its R6bn budget on maintaining old aircraft, partly as a result of the cancellation of the contract for eight Airbus A400 strategic lift aircraft in 2009.
Air force chief Lieutenant-General Carlo Gagiano stressed that it took "a lot of tender loving care" to keep in flight a light transport fleet that was mostly more than 30 years old, and said finding new aircraft for VIPs had become "a necessity".
"We only have two aircraft in our fleet that are younger than 20 years old. That is the president's aircraft at the moment and the PC12 single turbo prop aircraft."
Gagiano said VIPs were usually flown across Africa at night, and pilots had to contend with "very violent weather", poor infrastructure and frequent refuelling stops.
"So therefore to land in the middle of the night on the continent - and the minister alluded to one incident we had - is really looking for trouble and it makes life for our principals very uncomfortable.
"It is also very tiring and it takes a long time. I can remember one flight we had to do with a reserve force aircraft to South America. I think we had like six refuelling stops, and that cannot work.
"So this is a necessity. You can't add cost to this because again this VVIP is the frontline of our defence. Wherever we go, wherever we engage, our politicians engage first."
Motlanthe was returning from an African Union summit in Libya when the DC-9 he was travelling in overshot an unlit runway and burst a tyre when it made an emergency landing in the DRC at night to refuel.
He is usually flown in a Falcon 900, which also provides back-up services to Zuma. This 19-year-old aircraft can reportedly fly only 2 500 nautical miles before refuelling, but still has a better range than the DC-9.
Though the incident in the DRC was downplayed at the time, Sisulu made it plain on Wednesday that it was serious and one of the main arguments for finding new VIP planes.
Said Mpofu: "It is actually quite important that we keep to a zero incident standard in the aircraft and the aviation industry, but more importantly when we are dealing with VVIPs."
Sisulu stressed that the money would not come out of the R35bn defence budget, which she described as "completely inadequate".
"The R800m will not be coming from my money, it will be coming from Treasury. So I will not be taking any money from any soldier."
Defence sources said the minister would have preferred buying new aircraft but could not afford to, and Mpofu also indicated that leasing was not the best option in the long run.
"Quite clearly we reached a point where it became not economically viable to continue with the ongoing expensive lease operations that would ensure an increase in those costs without sustaining what is really a viable service that needs to be provided."
She said the Treasury's ability to actually deal with this matter came from rescheduling funds that had been "allocated for the delivery of certain of the aviation packages".
Sisulu confirmed that South Africa had secured a full refund on the cancelled Airbus contract, but was still negotiating the number of instalments in which it would recover R29bn paid before the deal was scrapped because of soaring costs.
