And guess who’s got a finger in that pie? None other than convicted fraudster, Tony Yengeni. Granted it probably won’t be a very big warship, if we can really even call it that, but it has the potential to cost even more than the four frigates we bought as part of the controversial 1999 R60 billion arms deal.

The acquisition project, codenamed: “Project Millennium”, has been in the making for a while, and was initially setup during Thabo Mbeki’s reign as president, but is temporarily on ice as the South African National Defence Force waits for the Defence Review to be approved by Parliament.

The purchase would form part of what’s called a “strategic lift” capability – enabling soldiers and equipment to be ferried quickly to and from points off foreign countries, and then lifted onto land by helicopter.

Spokesperson for the Department of Defence, Ndivhuwo Wa Ha Mabaya, told the Mail and Guardian:

I can categorically state: There is no formal order of any warship at this stage.

We are contemplating equipping the navy with several pieces of equipment but it all depends on the outcome of the defence review currently being conducted by the department.

We can’t pre-empt the outcomes of the review, but if there is deemed to be a need for the navy to acquire a warship of any kind, we would consider it.

The Citizen newspaper reports that we are looking at a number of vessels including the French-built “Mistrale” warships (pictured above), one of which visited Simon’s Town in 2007, as well as smaller vessels from Holland and Germany.

The ship would have the capability of operating more than a dozen helicopters, and possibly even vertical take-off jets.

Greyling van den Berg, spokesman for the South African Navy, 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.

So, what does Tony have to do with all of this? Well, he’s on the Defence Review Committee that would ultimately decide who would get the contract to supply the ship.

And we all know what happened last time we purchased expensive naval equipment: Yengeni was convicted of defrauding Parliament in 2003 after he obtained a discount on a luxury Mercedes Benz for his part in securing contracts for foreign arms companies during the controversial Arms Deal.

Director of the Southern Africa Institute for Accountability, Advocate Paul Hoffman SC, hasn’t tried to hide how he thinks this could all pan out:

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.

Chairman of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, Terry Crawford-Browne, explained that he thought that proceeding with such a purchase would simply be “madness”.

ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza had this to add:

We are not aware of President Zuma wanting any warship. If he did it wouldn’t be a secret. While it could be that someone is being mischievous if the supposed perpetrators of any rumour think there is something to hide, there certainly isn’t.

On the plus side, with such a vessel, we may be able to help the rest of Africa deal with the rise in pirate activity, which is also creeping increasingly closer to our own South African waters.

[Sources: Citizen, M&G]