The South African Navy’s corvette acquisition programme is back on track after a delivery delay, chief of navy staff Rear-Admiral Johannes Mudimu said on Thursday.
”Everything is progressing according to schedule,” he told reporters at a briefing in Pretoria on the state of the Navy. A hitch with defective cables late last year has delayed the delivery of the first of four new corvettes being built in Germany under South Africa’s arms procurement package.
Mudimu said the SAS Amatola was supposed to have arrived in the country last month. ”Despite all these problems, we can now report that the… corvette programme is back on track.”
The SAS Amatola was now expected to arrive in the second half of the year, when the
installation of her combat suite would get underway. Mudimu said this vessel had already conducted a series of successful trials. The second corvette, the SAS Isandlwana, would be subjected to similar trials later in the year.
The third vessel would be named and launched in Hamburg, Germany, by mid-year.
Mudimu said the hull sections of the fourth corvette had been joined and she was also beginning to take shape.
”The locally designed and built combat suite is at an advanced stage and is currently being tested in the integration test bed in Simon’s Town. These tests are also progressing well.” The corvettes are multi-purpose vessels for executing a variety of naval missions.
These include patrols to protect marine resources against poaching and pollution, law enforcement at sea, and search and rescue missions. The range of the corvettes will be around 4 000 nautical miles.
Each will carry a crew of 100, with room for an extra 20 passengers. Mudimu also reported good progress with the construction of South Africa’s three new Type 209 submarines in Kiel, Germany.
The first would be delivered in July 2005, the second a year after that and the third in July 2007. Turning to transformation in the navy, Mudimu said the organisation was well its way to meeting its racial targets set for 2010.
At present, blacks comprised 33% of the total staff component (target: 60%), whites 29% (23%), coloureds 28% (15%) and Asians 10% (two percent).
Mudimu said the targets would be reached through natural attrition. The current staff numbers in the navy stood at 4 609 uniformed personnel (71% of total strength) and 1 841 civilian personnel (29% of the total strength). Navy chief Vice-Admiral Johan Retief said the force were deliberately being kept understaffed.
At full strength, personnel costs would swallow 70% of the navy’s budget, leaving only 30% for operational expenses.
”We want to retain the correct balance,” Retief said. – Sapa