Sisulu, the minister of offence

After the briefing given by Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu on Thursday March 18 relating to information provided by US authorities who allegedly claim that her special adviser Paul Ngobeni is a fugitive from justice, it is little wonder that tensions are developing between Parliament and her concerning her department’s financial woes.

According to the minister: “Special adviser Dr Paul Ngobeni is not a fugitive from law. I have received a letter from the leader of official opposition Mr Trollip who has enquired about what we are doing. I have asked him to furnish me with further information about his allegation Mr Paul Ngobeni is free to travel as and when he pleases. Should you furnish me — yourselves or Mr Trollip — with the necessary information I will act on it.”

If one has regard to the posting on Professor Pierre de Vos’s website and the annexures thereto one can only wonder what “further information” the minister requires before actually following up on the claims.

In fairness to Ngobeni these are only allegations thus far but in light of the fact that it relates to the minister of defence, who does Sisulu believe is responsible for checking up on their veracity or otherwise? It defies description of how badly this reflects on the government’s perception of what constitutes adequate security for this vital department.

While we keep hearing stories about the NIA or former members of NIA being involved in political issues which are none of their business, here is the department of defence — our safeguard against invasion — and nobody has bothered to do the checks. This is where the NIA should be actively involved in doing checks and that without being asked.

Moreover it’s not up to outsiders to do their job for them. Neither Trollip or anyone else should be responsible for doing the checks that Sisulu should be doing as a matter of course.

Of course now we are hearing that she failed to appear before the public accounts committee (Scopa) to face questions on her department’s finances.

Scopa chairperson Themba Godi claims to have been notified by the defence ministry only on Tuesday morning that Sisulu could not make it because she had to accompany President Jacob Zuma on a two-day state visit to Uganda starting on Thursday.

The questions that need asking would fill a library but in short :

When was Sisulu advised that she had to go to Uganda?

When was her meeting with Scopa arranged?

Did she advise the president that she had this meeting?

Why was it imperative that she attend?

Godi said that protocol demands that Sisulu arrive before the president. He did not say why she could not have flown out after the meeting with Scopa.

He did, however, point out that Parliament had incurred the unnecessary cost of flying three members of the Auditor-General’s office to Cape Town for the meeting, only to learn today that it would not be taking place.

Again — we are dealing with the minister of defence. The person who is in charge of the safety of South Africa. The military, which sets agendas and concerns itself with punctuality because in times of war, time and place are everything.

That and of course information, which as we see in her dealings with Ngobeni, is not a major concern to our minister. Unless somebody else is willing to provide it.

If Zimbabwe ever invade we had better pray that Bob provides conclusive proof to our minister before he launches.

According to Sisulu, who later issued a statement, a fax was sent to Scopa last Thursday to ask that the meeting be postponed.

“On receiving confirmation that the minister has been invited to accompany the president on an official visit to Uganda, the minister instructed officials in the ministry to advise Scopa to postpone the meeting until she is next available. This communication was done verbally and a fax was sent to the committee on Thursday.”

Why nobody on the Scopa side got it seems to be the mystery and why Sisulu never checked with Godi even more so.

Defence has in recent weeks been grilled by Scopa and the portfolio committee on defence over its latest qualified audit, the ninth in a row, and its failure to provide MPs with clear information on what went wrong and how they were fixing it.

Sisulu denies that the department’s finances are in a mess.

One hopes she provided conclusive proof thereof.

She has also been challenged by the opposition in Parliament for failing to respond to written questions on time or in full and failing to oblige the defence portfolio committee with a briefing on the combat readiness of the SANDF.

Godi says the defence ministry’s response to Scopa’s questions about its financial administration problems, including an asset register in disarray, is not satisfactory.

Last week, Treasury officials told Parliament the defence ministry’s strategic three-year plan lacked “credible vision” of what the military should be doing and was more than a decade out of date. The plan bears Sisulu’s signature and opposition MPs have called on her to withdraw it.

It would appear that as long as time, place, information, budget, pre-planning and accountability are unimportant our defence could not be in safer hands.