[imagesource: Roger Sedres / Gallo Images via Getty Images]

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) isn’t exactly rolling in the cash.

Or, to put it in plain English, it’s “understrength, overage, and handicapped by obsolescent equipment and capability gaps”, and is battling budgets cuts and an investigation into roughly R1 billion of wasteful expenditure related to Cuba.

That’s what makes the splurge on sending trainee pilots to Cuba, and then chartering expensive flights to bring them home, so odd.

TimesLIVE ran this story earlier in March:

…the latest saga involves the SANDF’s vaunted Cuban military training exchange programme, code-named Project Thusano.

Three weeks after their arrival in August, eight of the 12 SA Air Force (SAAF) trainees were told they had failed an eye test conducted with a BIC ballpoint pen and were kicked off the programme. The test required trainees to follow the movement of the pen with their eyes.

The group spent the next five months cutting grass with pangas until the SA National Defence Union (Sandu) turned to the courts in a bid to force the Sandf to bring them home, finally sparking some action but at a huge cost.

Let’s dig a little deeper into that ballpoint pen test.

In South Africa, before joining the South African Air Force (SAAF), would-be pilots are put through extensive medical testing, as well as psychological and psychometric testing.

That round of testing lasts four weeks. Make it through, and your eyes are fine.

Enter the Cuban test, as described by trainees Heine de Jager, who was told in June 2021 that he was being sent abroad for further training:

De Jager said when they arrived in Cuba they quarantined for two weeks as part of Covid-19 protocols.

“We then had to redo our pilot medical tests, which lasted a week.

Image: Heine de Jager / TimesLIVE

“On the first day one of the doctors held a BIC ballpoint pen in front of my nose and moved it rapidly back and forth. Of the 12 of us, eight failed this rapid eye movement test. We were told our eyesight was poor and we could not be pilots.

“There was no way that test was scientific.”

The next five months were spent cutting grass and living in what de Jager called “appalling conditions” before the threat of legal action from his side spurred SANDF into action.

Two planes were chartered with an estimated combined cost of between R9 million and R14 million.

Of the 12 pilots originally sent over last year, four remain in Cuba.

De Jager has since resigned, having been told when arriving back in South Africa that the Cuban tests had no effect on his local pilot training.

Naturally, SANDF spokesperson Brig-Gen Andries Mahapa wouldn’t offer a response to follow-up questions and said information around medical records was “classified”.

Our relationship with Cuba has come under increased scrutiny in recent times, but nothing seems to change.