SAS Charlotte Maxeke refit on hold

The second of the Navvy’s Heroine class submarines, SAS Charlotte Maxeke, will not undergo a refit in the immediate future because the Request for Offer (RfO) was withdrawn by Armscor.

 At the same time the Navy, though its public relations officer, Captain (SAN) Zamo Sithole, said the “refit is scheduled to commence once requisite funding has been identified”.

Charlotte Maxeke was commissioned on March 14, 2007, with the pennant number S102. Her sister underwater craft are SAS Manthatisi (S101) and SAS Queen Modjadji 1 (S103).

 According to Armscor’s operational purchases tender system, Tender ARMD/10/14 for the refit of SA Navy submarine S102 at the Armscor Dockyard in Simon’s town has been withdrawn. The state security acquisition agency’s manager: corporate communication, Barileng Dichabe, said the RfO was not cancelled but withdrawn. “It was issued as a single source to the original equipment manufacturer (Howaldtserke, Deutsche Werft in Kiel),” she said.

 Asked what effect the delay in refitting the second of the Type 209 submarines acquired by the maritime arm of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) as part of the Strategic Defence Procurement Packages (SDPP) would have on the Navy’s underwater capability, Sithole said “to all intents and purposes the Navy will continue to have two submarines in the operational cycle at any time”.

 

He explained: “The SA Navy normally has one submarine in refit and two submarines in the operational cycle, with phases of maintenance, training and operational availability.

“Owing to SAS Charlotte Maxeke preparing to go into refit and SAS Manthatisi completing harbour acceptance trials (HATS) this can be construed as the SA Navy having only one submarine (SAS Queen Modjadji 1) currently in the operational cycle. However as the refit of SAS Charlotte Maxeke has yet to commence, she can still be considered to be in the operational cycle and can still be put to sea following some minor work and training, if required.”

The refit, including a complete battery replacement, of SAS Manthatisi, has been underway since 2007. She was originally targeted to start HATS in May but this was delayed due to problems with supply of certain spare and replacement parts.

“Sea acceptance trials will only commence once the Navy is satisfied all HATS have been completed to rigorous Navy safety standards,” Commander Greyling van den Berg said in June.

“No hard and fast date has been set for her re-commissioning. The date will be determined by progress of the harbour acceptance trials.”

The Navy previously pointed out the re-commissioning of SAS Manthatisi was the first time this has been done to a Type 209 submarine in the Simon’s town dockyard and the experience gained would be put to good use on the other two Heroine class underwater craft.

 According to Sithole the Navy “is still intent” on the Charlotte Maxeke refit.

“It will be done as soon as possible and the refit will be completed within the planned timescales. No changes are foreseen to the Navy business plan for its submarines,” he said.

 

SA Navy ‘did not overlook cheaper British submarines’

State arms procurer Armscor’s project manager for submarines, Rob Vermeulen, on Monday refuted claims that South Africa had overlooked an opportunity to purchase cheaper, British-manufactured Upholder/Victoria-class submarines.

He was responding to a question put to him by arms procurement commission evidence leader Sammy Lebala SC, who asked whether there was any truth to critics’ claims that Armscor sidelined the cheaper submarines by opting for an expensive German model due to corruption.

Mr Vermeulen resumed his testimony after Armscor and the Department of Defence relented to the commission’s demand that they declassify all sensitive documents. Judge Willie Seriti had postponed the hearings to give the government time to declassify the documents, saying he wanted to see all of them.

Mr Vermeulen said independent experts helped the South African Navy set up criteria to evaluate prospective submarines. The top priority was to measure the capabilities of the submarines and the age of the technology aboard the ship. "It was a blessing in disguise that we did not get to use these submarines," he said.

He said the disadvantage of the British Upholder submarine — which ran on a diesel engine instead of a nuclear reactor — was that it was old technology designed in the UK in the late 1970s to supplement the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine force. This would have made it difficult to repair them locally in Simon’s Town.

The four countries that were short-listed (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) were, however, offering the latest technology.

While the British submarines were seen as cheap, it was already known they had technical problems that eventually escalated their cost.

The British had sold the submarines to the Canadian Navy, and political parties in Canada had claimed the submarines deteriorated while in storage. "Many were never in service in Canada and this resulted in fruitless expenditure," Mr Vermeulen said.

Mr Vermeulen also denied that senior navy staff had interfered with the short-list scores of the procurement division.

Meanwhile, activist organisation Lawyers for Human Rights on Monday complained on behalf of Paul Holden, Hennie van Vuuren and Andrew Feinstein about the "secrecy regarding Armscor witnesses", saying they had only been informed by way of the commission’s website, on September 27, about witnesses scheduled to testify on behalf of Armscor from September 30.

"The testimony of Armscor officials — the state arms procurement corporation — is key to understanding who and how the procurement decisions were made," it argued.

It also expressed its concern about the failure of the commission to make available documents at its disposal to interested parties, despite the fact that both Mr Feinstein and Mr Holden had made a substantial joint submission — at the commission’s request — that included thousands of pages of supporting documents.