Let’s get rid of Denel

Instead of bemoaning the financial gains it could have made by an earlier entry into the Asia Pacific arms market, Denel should rather focus on how the responsible closure of this state enterprise can be achieved. (Cancelled Gupta arms deal cost Denel billions in sales, August 28).

For most of the years since 1992, Denel has been an enormous drain on South African taxpayers, not unlike the present situation where South African Airways constantly begs for bail-outs. Denel’s annual profits in recent years have very likely resulted from the government’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee turning a blind eye to its worthy guidelines for the export of arms.

Earlier this year the Cabinet designated 2017 as the Year of Oliver Tambo. Let us insist that this struggle hero not be honoured in word only, but in deed as well.

In his comments on the apartheid arms industry, Tambo said it was “a Frankenstein monster that cannot be reformed and must be destroyed”. So let us initiate a process to rid us of this apartheid legacy and convert it into a civilian-friendly enterprise.

Incidentally, there is no international benchmark that requires states to spend 2.2% of GDP on military hardware. SA should not only stop producing instruments of death but should demilitarise, as Costa Rica has so successfully done.

Gunvant Govindjee

Ormonde