The Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans needs to step in now as senior defence officials are dragging their feet over making public documents that would shed light on a highly questionable tender awarded by the SANDF's procurement services.

It was patently clear during yesterday's defence hearings at SCOPA that the department's financial affairs are in a mess and that intervention is needed to
halt what could be large-scale theft of public money.

Four months ago the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans instructed the senior management of the SANDF's procurement services to produce documents relating to how they came to award a questionable contract.
The contract was to clear unexploded ammunition from two pieces of state land. The contract was awarded to a company with no track record in the field which charged far more than a state owned company which is an acknowledged leader in the field and which was a rival bidder. Links were then revealed between a senior procurement official and the company which won the tender.

I have written to Mnyami Booi, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee and requested that the relevant procurement officers and officials be summoned urgently before the Committee to produce the missing documents; to explain why they were not presented before; and to submit to detailed questioning on how and why this contract was awarded.

This tender is just one of a number of suspicious contracts awarded by this department. The Portfolio Committee agreed to my request in November to ask Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu to launch a probe into all military procurement that does not fall under Armscor. The minister has yet to answer that request.