Pretoria - Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula says everything was done by the book for the hiring of a private charted flight for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s official trip to Japan at the weekend.
“Everything was done by the book… people aren't looking at processes, but the owners of the flight,” she said on Friday during a media briefing.
The Minister detailed the processes involved when hiring a private charted flight.
The Minister explained that a dedicated squadron of the SA Air Force (SAAF) is responsible for managing and tasking the movement of the principals informed by the requirements that are indicated by the offices of the principal concerned.
These requirements, she said, may include the number of passengers, nature of destination and length of travel.
However, should the VVIP squadron of the SAAF, which maintains and operates its own fleet of aircrafts, not be available for any reason such as maintenance or not suitable for the specific requirements of a particular travel, the rule is that a suitable aircraft may be chartered.
“For the recent visit of the Deputy President, the requirements were received by the SAAF. Two of the important requirements during this flight were that there must be a minimum of fuel stops en route and that there should be adequate rest/sleeping facilities for the Principal,” Minister Maphisa-Nqakula said.
For this specific trip, the Minister said the Boeing 737 (BBJ) of the SAAF, which meets all the requirements was not available as it was being used by President Jacob Zuma.
The only other aircraft, closest to meeting this requirement, was the Falcon 900 which was also unavailable due to maintenance.
But if it was available, it was also going to require that they make multiple stops – which was a security concern and would also have carried less passengers.
The other aircrafts in the VVIP squadron, according to the Minister, did not have either the range or the passenger capacity to do the flight.
With none of the SAAF aircrafts available or suitable, the next option was to charter an aircraft.
This was done via one of two options; namely a state charter contract of the National Treasury (RT-61 contract) or via a process of open tenders.
“The RT-61 National Treasury contract was specifically instituted to ease and speed up the process and is therefore the first option to use in such a short space of time,” said the Minister.
The RT-61 contract is awarded and managed by National Treasury and the only input that the department has in this process is the User Requirement Specification (URS).
Detailing the procedure, the Minister said usually the contract has been awarded by National Treasury, the SAAF receives a list of contracted companies and aircraft types, listed by registration number and the approved tariff per aircraft type.
Each company on this list is awarded a number of points and when an aircraft is chartered from the list, the company with the highest points must be approached first.
Only if this company is unable to provide an aircraft may the next company be approached, she said.
On this specific flight, this procedure was followed.
“The first company on the list was approached, but the aircraft they had on the list could only complete the flight with multiple refuelling stops and did not meet the requirement.”
ExecuJet
The second company on the list was ExecuJet which was approached.
“Their flight could complete the flight with only one refuelling stop as well as carry the required amount of passengers.”
As such it was chartered via the process as stipulated in the RT-61 contract and handed over to the SAAF.
The information provided to the SAAF on the RT-61 contract, the Minister said does not include ownership of the aircraft.
“Following interrogation of the ownership issue, it emerged that ExecuJet itself doesn’t own and operate its own aircrafts but manages a fleet of aircrafts on behalf of various owners.”
The flight was registered with Westdawn Investments - a company owned by the Gupta family and President Jacob Zuma, Duduzane.
Minister Maphisa-Nqakula said they were also informed that ExecuJet also exercises a right of non-disclosure of the third parties ownership of the aircrafts they make available on the RT-61 contract.
As such the Minister said there was nothing wrong with hiring a chartered flight.
She pleaded with the media not to create a crisis where there was none.
“There shouldn't be an impression created that SANDF and the Presidency decided to pick a plane from someone.”
Asked about the cost of the flight, the Minister said it was in the same range as the cost of using a SANDF plane.
Going forward, she said the solution lies in the capacitation of the SAAF with a dedicated fleet with enough capacity to meet both the transport and air defence capability requirements of the country.
The staggered implementation of this plan, Minister Maphisa-Nqakula said is already in place and will be done in line with targets of Milestone 1 of the implementation of the Defence Review. – SAnews.gov.za
