A political storm in a teacup?

When the South African Air Force recently sent a second plane along as back-up for the official presidential plane, Inkwazi – a Boeing 737-7ED (BBJ) – taking President Jacob Zuma to an important meeting in New York, it elicited much media coverage and strong words of protest from the opposition Democratic Alliance – bemoaning the waste of taxpayers’ money. Is the criticism justified, or just  political point-scoring when most other countries have far more elaborate and costly head-of-state transport arrangements.

A closer look at developments surrounding this debacle show that the problem may well  have been caused originally by the negligence of the Defence department  to timeously identify and address problems around available air transport for top government members when needed for important government business abroad.

This relates to poor maintenance of existing aircraft, insufficient back-up arrangements, securing new aircraft, and the provision of suitable pilots. These problems led to, among other things, embarrassment for the country and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe last year when he failed to arrive in Finland for an official state visit.

Motlanthe had to cancel his trip when his chartered aircraft experienced technical problems. The aircraft had been a replacement for his official Falcon 900 which air force sources said at the time was more than 30 years old and spent more time undergoing repairs than flying.

It also came to light that the safety of both Motlanthe and Zuma had been compromised on several occasions by in-flight problems.

At the time news of these incidents created a national stir that led to the resignation of defence secretary Mpumi Mpofu and the chief of the SA Air Force, Lieutenant-General Carlo Gagiano. The general’s resignation was not accepted by Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

The DA’s defence spokesman, David Maynier, at the time demanded a “full and comprehensive explanation for the reported resignations” the reason for which, he said, remained “murky”. Maynier said he would demand an explanation from the minister to say “what is being done to resolve the chaos in the SAAF’s VIP squadron” responsible for transporting the president and deputy president.

The DA also criticised aspects of how planes were chartered and flown for the president and deputy president. Maynier did not offer any proposals as to how these problems should be resolved.

In trying to address and rectify the presidential transport problems, the Department of Defence announced in November that it would spend about R1.6bn on two new long-range jets for the country’s two most senior executives. Bear in mind that many private company chief executives with less-important responsibilities travel in similar style all the time.

The department also announced that it was trying to get out of a R800-million five-year lease agreement with Nigerian-owned aviation company AdoAir for the acquisition and maintenance of VIP aircraft because of  problems and breaches relating to the tender.

This was not good enough for the DA’s Maynier, however. He reportedly said he had been taken aback by the news that new aircraft were to be purchased and said the SA Air Force needed a complete rethink on the transportation of VIPs.

“The deputy president and ministers should only be using military aircraft in exceptional circumstances, where there are no commercial alternatives. That is not happening," Maynier said, but not offering any explanation of what he meant by “commercial alternatives”, nor why South Africa’s leaders may not use the air force aircraft, which is  standard practice throughout the world.

The latest row erupted when it emerged that a second aircraft had been chartered to "shadow" President Zuma’s Boeing when he flew to New York just over a week ago. Gagiano had said the shadowing of the plane as a back-up measure was common practice after major maintenance or repairs had been done to an aircraft, as had been undertaken with the Inkwazi.

The DA’s Maynier responded by announcing in the media that this, however, was “not common practice”, but did not elaborate on what he thought is considered to be common practice. Maynier merely added that this raised the question why it was necessary to charter a backup aircraft if the air force had complete confidence in the operation of the presidential jet.

Clearly the air force simply wanted to be 100% sure the president does not get stranded like Motlanthe. After all, the event Zuma had to attend in New York was the start of South Africa’s final chairmanship of the UN Security Council as the country approached the end of its second term as a non-permanent member of the council. And Zuma was taking an all-important message for the whole of Africa to that meeting, namely the request that an African country be granted permanent membership of that body.

Nonetheless, Maynier said the DA would, among other things, ask parliamentary questions about the cost of chartering the backup aircraft, the names of those on board the aircraft, and whether the president’s safety had been compromised. Maynier had on this and other occasions questioned the use of military aircraft and the costs involved and the alleged waste of taxpayers’ money.

Defence spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya, General Gagiano and others have all responded by stressing the need for special precautions and flight arrangements following the embarrassment of Deputy President Motlanthe’s cancelled Finland trip and the other incidents.

Gagiano  quite rightly said the air force had a responsibility to help uphold South Africa's prestige by transporting the president safely and on time to international engagements. He added that VIP transport is extremely complex and important to the international image of the country, and recalled the “huge embarrassment” of Motlanthe’s cancelled trip.

That the defence ministry was initially caught napping, seems true. But that the department has tried everything possible within its limited means (and limited budget) since then to put things right, is also true. So the outburst by the DA”s Maynier, if not a storm in a teacup, may simply be little more than petty political point-scoring.

Especially if one considers that most countries have a specialised VIP transport unit run by their air forces, and most countries use a greater number of far more expensive aircraft than South Africa to do so.

For example, the Canadian air force operates five Airbus A310 and four Bombardier Challenger 600 aircraft for its government leaders; the Chilean air force operates four aircraft for the country’s president, two of them Boeings;  the Cuban air force operates six large jets for the president; the French president, prime minister and other senior members of government are flown by a special unit of their air force; Gambia uses three jets, including a Boeing; German leaders have at least eight aircraft – Airbus and Bombardiers – set aside for their use; the Mexican presidential air fleet consists of 18 aircraft; and so the list continues.

So, why the fuss here in South Africa?

Stef Terblanche