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The Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU) decision to cancel an irregular R200m contract by the Department of Defence to purchase unapproved COVID-19 medicine from Cuba is overdue. Those implicated must now be swiftly brought to book in yet another corruption scandal within the Department of Defence.

The DA has written to the Ministers of Police and Justice to establish progress made in the investigation and when cases will be brought for prosecution.  We further demand the Defence Ministry’s full cooperation with the SIU.

In 2022, the DA laid criminal charges against Department of Defence officials implicated in malfeasance surrounding Operation Thusano—an agreement with Cuba costings South African taxpayers at least R1.4 billion.

A report by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AG) indicates that all expenditure under Operation Thusano since 2015, when the project commenced, to December 2021 were irregular, with no proper procurement procedures followed or deviations obtained prior to entering into supplementary agreements.

It was under the guise of Operation Thusano that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) irregularly procured interferon (Heberon Alpha-2B) from Cuba at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to reportedly “cure Covid” at a cost of $20 million, of which $2 million was irregularly paid.

Further, the drug was purchased without approval for treatment of COVID-19 by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA). Despite this, Defence officials proceeded. After only 15 of 970,885 doses were used, the Department of Defence was instructed by the SAHPRA to return the medicine, yet they failed to recover $2 million used (R33 million).

From the AG’s report, it is clear that Operation Thusano should have been cancelled as early as 2022. The SANDF cannot afford the further R1.2 billion Cuba is expected to make from Thusano. The SANDF has been captured by the ANC for laundering money through Cuba under the guise of contracts for technical services and educational purposes, and the DA will ensure that those responsible for looting an already cash-strapped, budget-deprived SANDF face the full might of the law.

The influence of ANC cronies to in the SANDF’s constitutionally mandated priorities have led to a watered-down, defenceless, and resource-drained force that paid the ultimate price when 13 of its soldiers were killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this past week.

They have led our country into a grave crisis and must be held fully accountable.

Issued by Nicholas Gotsell MP - DA NCOP Member on Security & Justice