Wedding wasn’t only time Guptas used Waterkloof base to fly in guests

THE SA National Defence Force (SANDF) yesterday confir med the Gupta chartered aircraft, ZS-OAK, had landed and taken off from the Waterkloof Air Force Base to ferry military and civilian dignitaries in 2015.

Spokesperson Si phiwe Dlamini said the aircraft ferried various invited military and civilian dignitaries to the SA Army combat training centre in Lohatla, Northern Cape. He said that the dignitaries were invited to attend the 2015 edition of Exercise Amani Africa.

The SANDF charters aircraft when the “serviceable aircraft” are certified to be “inadequate to safely ferry” a specific number of passengers or goods, and when the serviceability status is assessed to have a potential to compromise the safety of both passengers and crew, Dlamini said.

“It is standard aircraft-charter procedure for the Department of Defence to forward a request for an aircraft charter through Treasury he said.

“It is through this process that ExecuJet was appointed as the service provider for the required aircraft.”

On Thursday, it was reported that the chartered aircraft belonged to the Gupta family. According to reports, emails sent to the chief executive of the Gupta-owned Sahara Computers, Ashu Chawla, show the aircraft’s movement.

The emails show that the aircraft was chartered by the SANDF in 2013 for a wedding and was allowed to land at the air force base.

This caused a furore because the base is a national key point and is off limits to unauthorised personnel. – ANA