All they want for Christmas is a flying carpet

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Lindiwe Sisulu. Photo: Mxolisi Madela

Times are hard, Christmas is just around the corner and the last time President Jacob Zuma flew to New York it cost R6.33 million, so Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has come up with a cheaper alternative to put in his Christmas stocking – a magic carpet.

She revealed in a written parliamentary reply to the DA’s David Maynier on Wednesday that the chartered flight which took Zuma to a UN General Assembly meeting in September had cost R3.73m for the Boeing 727 and its crew and an estimated R2.6m for fuel and handling.

However, in a riposte to Maynier’s suggestion that Zuma was about to receive a “very big Christmas present” in the form of two new aircraft for him and Kgalema Motlanthe, Sisulu suggested it would be cheaper for the president and his deputy to use a Persian carpet.

On Tuesday, the National Assembly was debating the budget adjustments for national departments, when Maynier rose and tossed Sisulu a curve-ball:

“I understand… that the honourable minister is in the process of buying the honourable deputy president a VERY BIG Christmas present,” he declared, referring to reports the defence department is to cough up R1.6 billion to acquire two new aircraft for the use of Zuma and his deputy, Motlanthe.

“Will the minister tell this House whether she really believes that it is justified to purchase business jets at the cost of billions of rands, when so many of our people are poor and destitute?”

Sisulu, unimpressed, unleashed her withering sense of humour: “However, for your own benefit, honourable Maynier, I have just returned from Oman. I went to the souk, which is their market.

“And I went shopping,” she announced defiantly, shooting Maynier a deadpan glance.

“I went shopping for Persian carpets, because I am informed they still fly, as they did so many years ago. I’m thinking perhaps it might be cheaper to get a Persian carpet for the president and deputy president if they’re not going to get business jets. I don’t know what else you expect them to use.”

MPs, including Maynier, collapsed with mirth, but the dogged opposition member decided to push the envelope of his love-hate relationship with the minister with his next question.

“One must conclude from the minister’s reply that she has in fact not read her own adjustments budget.

“Had she done so she would have known that there’s a very substantial virement (adjustment) to support the VIP (transport) capability. But the question is, since the minister is doing so much Christmas shopping, will she be buying me a Christmas present this year?” he asked.

But Sisulu was not in a forgiving mood: “But the next Christmas present that you would appreciate is to be on the front page of every newspaper, that’s what you live for every day… And other elements of representing the poor is just a by-the-way and is an excuse.”

Maynier had had the rug pulled from under him. - Political Bureau

It all comes down to size of your… plane

Size evidently matters when it comes to the intercontinental jets that carry kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers on official business abroad.

If you scan the to-scale illustrations of such aircraft, you will get a rough sense of how nations rank in the world, or at least how they think they should.

US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are all out there in front, at 70m of aircraft each, all flying Boeing 747s or customised variations.

The US’s Air Force One is the industry standard, with its sophisticated logistical and security facilities, including a mini “White House” for the president, with an office from which he can address the nation while flying, plus comfortable sleeping quarters, medical clinic and so on.

When India upgraded its prime minister’s intercontinental transport in 2003 from a standard 747 hired from the national carrier Air India to the dedicated 747-400, it was very much inspired by Air Force One, according to India media commentators.

They say Air India One now also has jamming devices, chaff dispensers, a medical room, secure communication facilities, in-flight refuelling capabilities and other electronic warfare devices.

Indian officials suggest that some journalistic licence has been taken here and that Singh still flies in an Air India 747-400 hired from the airline’s normal fleet, configured especially for his purposes, with meeting and sleeping quarters and so on – but reconfigured afterwards for normal commercial passenger flights.

Hu’s travel arrangements differ, in that his 747s remain permanently with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force fleet.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is just a nose behind the three 747s in his Ilyushin Il-96-300PU, length 68m, range 15 000km reportedly fitted out in Britain at an extra cost of about £10 million (R131m), with gold taps, silk curtains and the like.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy travels in a specially converted Airbus A330-223, length 58.8m, range 15 400km.

Though the French media have taken the usual digs at Sarkozy for the alleged pretentiousness and extravagance of this largish plane, it is quite an old machine, bought from an airline.

The big planes flown by Hu, Singh and Medvedev suggest that the challenge from the major emerging economies – now grouped as Brics, the Brazil, Russia, India, China and now South Africa forum – to the Western powers for global dominance is also largely reflected in the air.

Brazil, though, is rather an exception to this rule. President Dilma Rousseff, elected last year, travels in an Airbus A-319-CJ, the corporate jet version of the A-319 commercial passenger aircraft.

At 33.8m it falls well short of the other Brics aircraft, though it is much the same size as the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) which President Jacob Zuma now flies – but which he finds inadequate, according to the Defence Department.

Upgrading to something larger than a BBJ, though, would also put Zuma ahead of Australian Governor-General Quentin Bryce and Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who fly in dedicated BBJs operated by the Royal Australian Air Force.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan also flies a BBJ.

One conspicuous absentee from this aerial competition is Britain.

Because of drastic austerity measures and a national aversion to ostentation by its leader, the UK has no dedicated intercontinental air transport for Queen Elizabeth or Prime Minister David Cameron.

They have to make do with scheduled, commercial flights or charter aircraft, and even these prompt howls of “extravagance” from the political opposition and the press.

The Nordic countries are generally just as modest. Norway’s King Harald and Queen Sonja visited South Africa two years ago on regular commercial flights.

Zuma is among the front runners in this fleet of leaders, travelling neck and neck with Gillard (with a gross domestic product about 3.4 times South Africa’s) and Rousseff of Brazil (GDP about 5.7 times larger) and also wing tip to wing tip with Jonathan, with a GDP a little more than half South Africa’s.

On the international pretension index, which measures size of presidential jets relative to GDP, the UK, with no such dedicated aircraft, scores an award-winning zero; the US, despite Air Force One, a very low 4.8; Brazil also a very low 6; China a modest 12, Australia a less modest 27; India a rather presumptuous 44 (though with a big discount for only leasing the planes); and South Africa a worryingly conceited 92 – though much less so than Nigeria’s rather pompous 166.

And that ranking will only get worse if South Africa does acquire a bigger presidential jet or two, as defence spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya has said the ministry is planning to do. “The new, bigger plane is going to be responsible for longer international trips such as (to) Europe and America.

“The current one (the Boeing Business Jet) will be used mainly for domestic regional trips, so that when the one is resting, we make use of the other one,” he was quoted as saying.

The BBJ has a range of more than 11 000km, so one wonders where Zuma is planning to travel with the larger aircraft.

Media have speculated that two Boeing 767-300 ERs, which would cost about $164m (R1.36 billion) each, are on the shopping list.

That would push the total price tag well beyond the R1.6bn the Defence Ministry has reportedly budgeted for the upgrade, though leasing is evidently an option.

Yet the range of the 767 is pretty much the same as the BBJ’s, so that would defeat the official reason for laying out a billion-plus to upgrade.

Or is it really just another case of size mattering?

At 54.9m in length, the 767 would put Zuma well ahead of that upstart Jonathan (who’s been voting funny on the UN Security Council and elsewhere lately) and right up there in formation with the likes of Sarkozy, useful to keep an eye on him, especially when he’s in Africa.

Yes, it would also boost our pretension index to 155, just behind Nigeria’s. But that’s in purely economic terms.

In political terms the upgrade would do no more than express our rightful place as the continent’s superpower and a major emerging player, surely? It’s important to look the part, not so?

 - The Star

Sisulu in aviation court row

The Defence establishment failed this week to meet a court date to explain its seemingly bizarre actions in negotiating two separate and mutually exclusive tenders for the same VIP air transport contract at the same time.

With Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu as first respondent, and the Defence Secretariat and Armscor included in the list, the military were required by an order of the Pretoria High Court to provide reasons for the cancellation of an R826 million contract awarded to aviation outfit AdoAir earlier this year.

Thereafter the court would decide whether to order the military bosses to reinstate the contract.

By an earlier high court decision, the government was compelled to cancel a separate contract concluded with provider ExecuJet in terms of a second tender process – entered into while the AdoAir contract was still being finalised, and without AdoAir being informed there were any problems.

But no record of the decision was provided to clear the confusion, nor was any affidavit opposing the AdoAir application lodged with the court. Now a new court date has been set for December 29 for the matter to be argued and finally decided.

DEAL GROUNDED: The Department of Defence has been ordered by the High Court to provide reasons why it cancelled its contract with AdoAir.

INLSA

Confirming that an affidavit opposing the AdoAir application for the reinstatement of its five-year lease contract was in preparation, Defence ministry spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya said the matter would from now be handled by the Department of Defence. “We will be asking for the minister’s name to be removed from the list of respondents,” Mabaya said. “This is a question of procurement and she is not in charge of procurement.”

Mabaya went on to explain that the reason no record had been furnished to the court of the cancellation of the AdoAir contract was that no such decision had been taken in the first place.

He said that, though the contract was initially given to AdoAir “the parties couldn’t agree on terms and no contract was actually entered into”.

AdoAir contests Mabaya’s version, specifying in court papers that after the contract was originally awarded in March this year – and the company entered into fine tuning negotiations with the Defence department – no glitches were encountered. Nor was there any failure to agree on terms, nor any objections or reservations registered by the military.

It was, by AdoAir’s account, all systems go, when the bombshell hit – in a report published on the South African Air Force’s website stating the contract had been taken away from AdoAir and a new lease had “been concluded with a large and respected South African company”, later identified as ExecuJet.

The ExecuJet contract, it transpired, had been concluded on the basis of an entirely separate tender for the same service, this one issued by Armscor rather than the Defence department.

Then it got really confusing. With the Defence department failing to respond to AdoAir’s requests for clarification, the chief of the Air Force, Lieutenant Carlo Gagiano stepped in, reassuring AdoAir’s executives that the contract remained valid and would be going ahead – and indicating he would sign off the deal himself.

But on July 4, apparently overriding Gagiano’s intervention, then Secretary of Defence Mpumi Mpofu dispatched a letter indicating the department had reservations around the deal and all bets were off. AdoAir insists that no such reservations had been registered in the appropriate forum of meetings with government stakeholders to finalise the contract.

Mpofu’s claim was therefore regarded as claims not made in good faith.

In the fallout, both Mpofu and Gagiano tendered their resignations, though in the event Mpofu’s was accepted while Gagiano was persuaded to stay on.

Contacted by The Sunday Independent, AdoAir’s lawyer Dr Gerrie Ebersohn dismissed as “absolute nonsense” later justifications from the government that the company had been unable to raise financing to buy the two jets required in terms of the lease agreement. As is recorded in the court papers, Nedbank had guaranteed funding for the deal.

To date, AdoAir has successfully sued for the cancellation of the wildcard Armscor contract awarded to ExecuJet, but confusion still reigns around its own on-off deal with the Defence department.

As recently as August – after the cancellation of the ExecuJet contract – a flurry of meetings took place where, according to AdoAir executive Daniel Joubert in a supplementary affidavit, the department indicated it was “finalising a review of the ‘process’ so the parties can proceed with the tender awarded to the applicant”.

This was especially motivated in light of the fact that South Africa’s presidential Boeing was due to be grounded for maintenance from September and urgent interventions needed to be made.

Then silence again until, finally, on November 1 – with the court order to explain the de facto cancellation of the contract already in force – Sisulu’s attorneys Xulu Liversage Inc said they had been instructed to reopen negotiations and to agree on time frames with a view to validating the AdoAir contract.

But this also proved another false start and the trail went cold yet again.

Meanwhile, VIP aircraft are chartered in terms of special legislation governing so-called “transversal” contracts – those that fall outside of the supply chain management system because they are designed to service more than one government department – administered by the National Treasury. As such they are not subject to the usual checks and balances to which public sector tenders are subjected.

The provision of VIP aircraft has resulted in ongoing scandals in recent months, with Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe left stranded in Finland and President Jacob Zuma piloted to New York by an airman convicted of mercenary activity.

- IOL