According to Defence and Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga, Project Thusano as a solution to resuscitate SA National Defence Force (SANDF) equipment did not fail.

She informed Democratic Alliance (DA) Member of Parliament (MP) Maliyakhe Shelembe, in writing, Thusano – by way of a Cuban/South Africa bilateral agreement – came into being because the local industry was charging exorbitant fees and was not doing what was expected of them to repair and maintain vehicles. “Instead there were a lot of returns of vehicles after they were ‘repaid’ (sic) by the local industry”.

He was further told that the repair and maintenance work was not to standard, causing SANDF prime mission equipment (PME) to be beyond economic repair and needing to be disposed of. Meanwhile, there were no prospects of replacement due to budget cuts.

“Consequently, the SANDF had a lot of unserviceable equipment which was also compounded by the brain drain of our technicians because the technical services were outsourced to the local industry. This placed the SANDF in a precarious situation.

“The SANDF took a strategic decision to arrest the decline and ensure that its Prime Mission Equipment is resuscitated so as to fulfil its mandate. Project Thusano was a vehicle and a solution to resuscitate our equipment,” the Ministerial reply to the 9 July question reads.

Thusano does not exist as a project in the Department of Defence (DoD)/SANDF any longer, having been replaced by Project Kgala. A report has it Kgala is a new initiative, made public in March this year, “designed to address the failures of its predecessor”.

Motshekga’s reply to the Shelembe question indicating Thusano did not fail does not make mention of any Auditor-General (AG) findings. Tsakani Maluleke’s number crunchers found the project resulted in irregular expenditure of R1.7 billion due to non-compliance with South African procurement regulations.

Her Chapter Nine institution found Thusano agreements failed to comply with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) as well as National Treasury (NT) regulations. Procurement of services from Cuba bypassed standard competitive processes and there was no cost benefit analysis conducted to justify expenses.

A further AG finding that the cost of Cuban labour was up to 3.8 times higher than if South African mechanics/technicians were used was dismissed by Motshekga. Her response has it the “assertion” on repair and maintenance work is “misleading” stating “focus of the project [Thusano] is on the total cost and quality of the services rendered, as well as the skills transfer achieved through the initiative”.

The AG report has it there was no verifiable evidence that training in Cuba led to long term sustainability in the SANDF, querying any skills transfer effectiveness.

Project Kgala, the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans (PCDMV) heard earlier this year, would be more cost effective as well as being regulation compliant than its predecessor. An expected 82% reduction in expenditure over a five-year period was indicated by the DoD in the PCDMV presentation.