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The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that, rather than trying to prevent information about presidential flights being made public, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Lindiwe Sisulu, should focus on real risks to the safety of President Jacob Zuma.

Earlier this week the minister refused to reply to parliamentary questions about the routing and costs of presidential flights because the information was "confidential", despite the information being made available in the past. A senior defence department official later argued that information about presidential flights may "fall in to the wrong hands" and "endanger" President Jacob Zuma.

However, rather than trying to prevent historical information about the routing and costs of presidential flights being made public, the defence department should be focusing on the real risks to the safety of President Jacob Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.
These safety risks include:

real-time information about the course, speed, altitude and destination of President Jacob Zuma's Boeing Business Jet reportedly being available on the internet; and

excess and unaccounted for baggage, which may have belonged to an advance presidential security detail, reportedly being discovered on President Jacob Zuma's Boeing Business Jet prior to take-off during a recent state visit to India.

Moreover, last year Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe had to endure an
emergency landing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a return trip from an African Union Summit in Libya. This raises some hard questions about whether the safety of President Jacob Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe may have been compromised.

The DA will therefore:

call on the minister to investigate whether real-time information on President Jacob Zuma's Boeing Business Jet is available on the internet, whether this poses a security risk, and if so what is being done to mitigate the risk; and

submit parliamentary questions the key findings and recommendations of the boards of enquiry into President Jacob Zuma's excess baggage incident in India as well as Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe's emergency landing incident in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The fact is that the defence department has an obligation to ensure that there is a "zero risk" approach to the safety of President Jacob Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.