Transcript of International Cooperation, Trade and Security Cluster briefing - statement by Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu at Imbizo Media Centre, Cape Town, March 12 2010
Panel: Thozile Xasa, Deputy Minister of Tourism, Siyabonga Cwele, Minister of State Security, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation
Questions and answers
Journalist: I have two questions to the Minister of Defence. The first is on border control. The parliamentary portfolio committee of defence was briefed and was given some information on the companies that were deployed on the Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Swaziland borders but with very little information regarding Botswana and Namibia, which we know is not really a problem but also no information on the Lesotho border, which you know is also prone to stock theft. What can we tell the farmers or the rural people of the districts surrounding Lesotho what the Defence Force is going to do now that they are taking over from the police?
Journalist: With regard to your special advisor Mr Paul Ngobeni whom we reported on September last year because he is a fugitive from justice in the American state of Connecticut - this was also raised in the portfolio committee and it raised two questions. When you were informed about this, you said you will have a look at it. I just want to know how comfortable you are with the position as what you have ascertained. And secondly how he cleared security with our security grouping because he was given a security clearance despite the fact that if he put his feet back in the state of Connecticut or USA he will be arrested immediately?
Journalist: Recently the ANC youth league leader Julius Malema has claimed that he has obtained some state information from the intelligence and of course this has raised some serious questions from other quarters. We haven't had any word from the Minister with regard to that. I just want to know what his intervention regarding that is, because in terms of the law it is a serious matter that a private citizen would really get that kind of information?
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: Thank you. The briefing that was given to the portfolio committee was actually meant to be a thinking through of the strategy of the Defence Force as to how we intend to deploy on the border. It was essentially meant to be an in-house conversation through the portfolio committee and the Department of Defence because these are matters that we don't like to have in the public domain.
You are asking me what we shall tell the farmers of Lesotho now that we are taking over responsibility of our border. I think we should also be careful what it is that we are telling the criminal that are prone to use those routes so this is a matter we would like deal with as sensitively as possible, but I was informed by Minister of Police that the farmers' association would like to have a meeting with myself. I am therefore urgently preparing to meet with them and I will indicate to them very directly what steps we are taking to ensure that we can secure their border and stock from cross-border raids which are common on the Lesotho border I will be dealing with the farmers. In our approach in dealing with the borders we have taken a phase-in approach starting almost immediately - starting in April and stretching over two to four years. We have put our strategy in line with our assessment together with the police and national intelligence of what the threats are, so the phase-in approach is what was provided to the portfolio committee and it will take the priority as worked out in the assessment of the threat. If you allow me to leave it at that, we will be going back to the portfolio committee because the initial engagement with the portfolio committee was sharing of thoughts and the deployment and possibilities. It had not been cleared with me. I will be presented to me and I will apply my mind and when we take a final decision it will be back with portfolio committee. We will probably do this in the month of March because we have to be out by the border in the first of April.
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: Special advisor 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. The information we have at our disposal is information we have tested and we also base a lot of our assessment on the outcome of the investigation at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the statement made by the vice counsellor of UCT. Should you have any information we are available but he is free to work in my office. I would like us to use the necessary restraint in putting out allegations that have not been tested. At the moment these are allegations, there is no case that has been put forward against Mr Ngobeni and therefore it should not prejudice him from working with myself but I remain very open to information from yourselves.
Minister Siyabonga Cwele: Thank you for the question although the matter has got nothing to do with the cluster, but we will try and answer it, it is a domestic matter. Firstly it is not true that we've remained mum on the allegation that a private citizen such as Malema obtained classified documents from the State Security Agency. Brian Dube, our communication officer, issued statement in this regard. I personally yesterday answered the question at the National Council of Provinces but for the benefit of this gentleman, the answer is this Mr Malema did not have any access to classified documents in the possession of the State Security Agency. Secondly it is not our policy or practice to give classified documents or information to private citizens. Thirdly at no stage did Mr Malema ever say that he obtain classified documents from my department, the State Security Agency, and I hope that instead this is the political parties who are insinuating that whatever document Malema got, he got from my department. I just want to emphasise once more it is not true that we gave any classified information or document to a private citizen.
Journalist: When can we expect a briefing by the Department of Defence or about the readiness of the Defence Force? Secondly have you worked further on replacing the A400 Airbus airplanes that we didn't buy? I remember you said it's going back into treasury and that you need to fight for those funds to be given back. Have any work been done around that?
Journalist: Follow up question in relation to A400 Airbus. Any indication to when data is going to go through the market and are you going to go back to Airbus or are you going to spread your wings to Boeing, possibly?
Journalist: Follow up question. Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: You know it is International Relations, Trade and Tourism. Please.
Journalist: Okay, Minister. Do you have any information since the cancellation of the A400 contract if any of the companies that were supposed to benefit from the spin-off, if they were affected? My second question is when we can expect a policy structure around the division of the Military Veterans now that you have a new Director-General (DG). And how soon can we expect the appointment of a permanent Secretary for the Defence.
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: Can I just preface this by informing everybody that we have just returned from a very successful trip to the United Kingdom (UK). The Department of International Relations arranged for 12 Ministers to accompany the President and we were also accompanied by 200 business people - that shows the importance of our relationship with the UK. I have hoped that perhaps we might use this opportunity to give perspective on a very successful trip.
On the state of readiness briefing to Parliament: we are very ready to do that to the mandated portfolio committee of Parliament and at the request of that particular committee. We have received no request on this particular matter. This is a matter that comes up over and over again, either in press briefings or when we are in Parliament and my answer has been the same. When we receive a request from an accredited portfolio committee we will comply and we have done this in the past and we will continue doing so. There are of course attendant requirements from our side and we would like to think that particular mandated portfolio committee would observe this. When get that request we will brief Parliament on this matter.
A400 capacity - yes we curtailed our relationship with A400 in the matter of procuring Airbus capacity that we have ordered from them in 2005, and we expected at that time that we would get repayment of the amount of money to the amount of R2.9 billion. We have further reserved in treasury for the current financial year R4.7 billion to ensure that we can meet our obligations. We await the response of Airbus on the cancellation of this contract so that we can facilitate the return of money that been paid out in line with the agreement we have with them. In relation to the money that has already been allocated to Airbus, the Minister of Finance will be attending to the matter of the budget, indicated that we made a saving in the cancellation of the contract and unfortunately as you all know, none of that came to me. I am battle-scarred fighting for my portion of this money to come to me because we need this capacity and the reasons why we cancelled the contract had nothing to do with our needs. We are ready to put before Cabinet the necessary document that will assure that we can get this capacity and proceed with the necessary procurement processes. We are not sure yet what we are going to get in the market so it would be very difficult to say whether we are going back to the A400. We are keeping our options open and we will follow the due processes of tender and come up with the best option in line with our budget and in line with our needs.
The question around the new Department of Military Veterans - it was promulgated by the President in December. We now have a new DG and we are hoping that on the 1st of April with the new allocation we will then have a composite department running for military veterans. When are we appointing the new secretary of defence - on the 1st of April we will have a new secretary of defence and I'm hoping by that time the President will have ensured that the matter is out in the public domain. If not, we will continue having an acting secretary of defence who is Themba Matanzima. I can't give any indication of who the President will appoint at the end of the day.
Journalist: Do I understand you correctly Minister, are you awaiting the repayment of $2.8 billion from Airbus. If you can update us a bit more?
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: No, we are expecting a repayment of R2.9 billion from Airbus. This is money that has already been paid out into the project for the procurement of military Airbus. In terms of our contract with Airbus, on the cancellation before a particular date we can have our money back, so this is what we are asking them to do, to give us our money back. We have not had any formal response from Airbus so we do not anticipate that there will be any problem. So that is the matter as it stands now.
Journalist: Sorry, the Minister didn't respond to one of my question about any companies that were affected by the cancellation of the Airbus contract?
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: No, the cancellation of Airbus was for the procurement of eight military Airbus capabilities. It had nothing to do with any other contracts that Airbus might have with South African companies. Those are separate contracts that Airbus has with South African companies and I'm not aware that any of them have been cancelled. Thank you.
Journalist: Minister, if battled scarred at least not to the naked eye. Might I add to your trouble just a little bit and I'm sorry I will stay with Defence because it's part of this cluster. To follow up on my own question regarding Mr Ngobeni that information was not procured from any political party. That information comes from Politicsweb. They went to the head of Prosecutions in the State of Connecticut and they got a letter from the head of Prosecutions in the State of Connecticut whom you can call and it's very easy. We published that letter on the front page of City Press and I've been struggling since September last year with your Department to get more information. So it's not a matter of just butting it out. Do you think that you've been proactive enough in just checking with the State of Connecticut whether this man is a fugitive from justice? It's one of the easiest things to do.
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: Yes I am very keen that we move away from Defence for the simple reason that Government is clustered is around clusters to give a particular perspective of Government and I would like us to move away to make sure that we can we can deal with other important issues that this country is dealing with.
On the matter of Paul Ngobeni, as I indicated, this is a matter I am seized with as I also indicated where the political party is involved in this is where Mr Trollip has written to me personally to ask what is being done about Paul Ngobeni. I have responded to him and I have asked for more information I have said here when I was talking to you if you have any information please bring it forward. We can't act on allegations that are put out in the media but if you have information that you would like to bring to my attention I will attend to it, I'm open to any information that will be provided to me. May I also add that the Democratic Alliance has taken the matter of Paul Ngobeni to the Public Protector, so she herself is engaged with the matter, so if you get no joy with me please ensure that you can find your way to the Public Protector. She would be very open to assist in this matter.
Journalist: My question is directed at the Deputy Minister of Tourism. Has there been any concern from other countries, other tourism authorities on overcharging during the World Cup specifically countries in Arica?
Deputy Minister Thozile Xasa: We don't have any direct information or concern that has come to us but we have picked it up from amongst the media the concerns around that. We have also made interactions with the various airline companies, we have also made information available and also indicated to the establishments of what South Africa feels to say the World Cup event that is coming is our World Cup and we want to make sure that what comes out of it and what remains for the people of South Africa would be such that all of us benefit. So we do not want them to take advantage of it by chasing away visitors who will be coming down here. We are appealing to them to be responsible as part of the partners of tourism. We are open to investigate; the Minister has commissioned an investigation on the part the establishment just to ensure that we have facts around the matter so that we can be able to then work together with the partners, deal with such matters because we would not want to have any bad people around the World Cup.
Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane: Honourable Minister I am sure you know, our journalists and senior officials would know that for such a successful trip there is no way I can give you a full rundown of that trip in one minute. We have had a very successful visit. President Zuma was responding to the invitation of the Queen and we spent three official days in that country, met with the Queen, and stayed at Buckingham Palace. I have seen a lot of funny stories about what we were not supposed to be doing in the Palace together with Minister Sisulu. We also had very important engagements with the leadership of Cabinet partners in the UK. I've also had the opportunity to interact with the Portfolio Committee on International Relations of the joint houses. Of course we debated Zimbabwe for a long time and by the time we left we thought they understood why we have the position we have on this issue. The President also addressed the joint Houses and got resounding applause from both Houses and members of the legislatures there.
With Prime Minister Brown we got a very strong and resounding buy-in into supporting the five key priority areas of President Zuma's Government. We also got reassurance on strengthening our ties with that particular country and to continue to work together at multilateral forums, be it at the G20, the reforms of the United Nations (UN) institutions, in particular the UN Security Council. The Government of the UK under the leadership of the Labour [party] have also committed to support us, in fact let me say all the three main political parties, should they be voted back into power, they will support South Africa's bid to go back into the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member for the years 2011 and 2012.
We used the opportunity to also visit and had an official handover of the House of the Tambos back to the South African Government as one of our monuments. We accompanied the President to Wembley Stadium where he scored a penalty goal - hopefully this will give Bafana Bafana motivation and indeed as the President said in the UK, surprise South Africans in the world by performing some miracles come 2010.
We also participated in the programme lead by Prime Minister Brown worldwide called One Goal. The One Goal mission is meant to, it's all the players in the world, football players and leaders of the world support the One Goal Initiative which is one of the millennium development goals (MDGs) to support the goal of making education accessible to all children, particularly under-privileged children. More than 20 million children around the world are unable to access schooling because of poverty.
We also had one thing that has never happened on any State visit, a very exciting meeting with progressive non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the UK. The majority of those, like former apartheid movement leaders who have now turned their energies to supporting the five key priority areas of our Government, supporting in particular and focusing primarily on supporting our initiatives on education and health. Prior to the visit to the UK I represented the South African Government in Geneva at the Human Rights Council sitting to recommit South Africa's determination to continue support the Human Rights Council. Two days before then I was in China.
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: Minister, why don't we confine ourselves to the UK visit so that we can ask questions if there are any and deal with that matter.
Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane: I think it is important that we inform our population of the work we do in the International Relations and Cooperation, I know we issue loads of statements but it seems our people don't really know much about what we are doing and that's why we spend so much time on Airbuses I guess. But let me pause here Minister and say that our public diplomacy will continue to inform the South African population of the work we do. I am ready for questions.
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: Thank you, we have asked the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation to give you that brief summary because we thought that it was important that the South African people get a perspective of what we were doing. We did note an absence of many of you there and perhaps there is something that we need to do as a Government to ensure that we are able to communicate as we are out there. It was a very important visit and we would have wanted it covered in that way. It also allowed us to have a positive launch to the 2010 Games, we also used that opportunity to launch the 2010 logo which I hope that the IMC will be launching in South Africa as well soon.
Journalist: I want to find out Minister, you say that our Government spoke to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the issue of Zimbabwe and you put through your position and you said that they understand what our position is on Zimbabwe. I want to find out, in any given stage in the deliberations were they willing to lift some of the sanctions against Zimbabwe. Can you give us an insight in the deliberations and where the British stand on the matter. My second question would be on Sudan. We understand they are having their elections in April? I wanted to find out; I know former President Thabo Mbeki has been working there. I want to know is Sudan ready to have elections and are we guaranteed that after those elections we might have some peace and stability in that country?
Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane: Let me start with Zimbabwe. Like I said, we have shared information with the UK Government first to clarify that President Zuma's facilitation team is working not only on behalf of the South African Government but also working on behalf of the organ on politics and security chaired by Mozambique under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). I think that clarity need to be made here secondly to say that amongst the many important milestones and achievements that our facilitators, together with Mozambique and SADC, are making in Zimbabwe is that the UK Government didn't know of these very important commissions that have been agreed upon which Minister Sisulu referred to. The three important commissions that will lead to peaceful forthcoming elections in Zimbabwe, the commissions on elections, human rights and media which Zimbabwe never had in the past. So we have agreed with the UK that we will work together with Zimbabwe to capacitate these institutions to make them fully functional as one of the progress points that have been made recently. On the issue of the sanctions, indeed yes, it was fully covered by the media on what President Zuma had shared with the Government of the UK. The decision to impose sanctions on selected members of the Zimbabwean Cabinet has not been the UK Government only but the European Union. The UK Government has said to us they have listened to our input, they will be consulting with other European Union members, they were not hostile to the sharing of information session we had with them.
On Sudan, on Tuesday I was in Kenya, invited as the chair of the post-conflict and reconstruction of the south Sudan, to participate in that extraordinary summit to look at the level of preparedness for the Sudanese elections. Yes, former President Mbeki has been appointed by the African Union (AU) to lead the AU panel on the resolution of the problems in Sudan but when he was appointed firstly it was really meant for Darfur but now that Sudan has to undergo elections from the 13th to the 17th of April the mandate has been extended to also cover the areas of the south Sudan to encompass the conclusion of the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement with the Government of Sudan. Yes, they are making progress because the high level panel of the AU, led by former President Mbeki, has succeeded in making sure that all parties that are going to be contesting elections sign a code of conduct that will help them run the elections as freely and fairly as possible. Do we know whether the Sudanese are ready for these elections? Every time I have to respond to this kind of a question I go back to our level of readiness in 1994. Should we have waited until we were 100% ready, elections would not have taken place in 1994. Remember we had a huge bomb exploding at the headquarters of the African National Congress (ANC) just on the eve of elections. To some pessimists they would have said that was proof of the lack of readiness and so therefore elections should have been called off. There are lot of challenges in Sudan - the majority of the people in south Sudan have never seen an election; there has never been a free and fair elections in the past 45 years in Sudan, particularly in the south. People of the south are faced with lack of infrastructure but secondly on the election matter itself they will be confronted with 12 ballot papers in one day. People who have never seen one ballot will have to vote 12 times in one day. This is just one of the challenges they will be confronted with. Through the summit there was a recommitment again that the post-conflict and reconstruction development of South Sudan together with the high level panel led by former President Mbeki to make sure some semblance of a free and fair elections takes place in Sudan.
Minister Lindiwe Sisulu: To the members of the media here, thank you very much, it must have been a difficulty for you to adjust between yesterday and today. Our sincerest apologies and I think that tip will allow us to work as Government much closer and better. We will do it better next time, but it also indicates to us that perhaps we might want a closer engagement with yourselves on a more frequent basis than these quarterly briefings and we will ask Government Communications (GCIS) to arrange that because this is a cluster that is actively engaged on a daily basis to ensure we can push out our frontiers of engagement with the international community. So we will take note of that and we will come back to you on a more regular basis.
Issued by: Government Communications (GCIS), March 12 2010
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