Army tender raises red flags

INFANTRY: ARMOURED CARRIERS HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN TESTED, YET CONTRACT AWARD IS DUE

- Staff reporter

POROUS. Soldiers patrol the fence on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa near Musina in Limpopo, where some parts of the fence have been cut.

(Picture: Gallo Images)

Concerns among armoured vehicle manufacturers are mounting over the imminent announcement of the winner of the tender to supply the South African National Defence Force with 462 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) for counterinsurgency border patrols.

The tender was initially opened for formal expressions of interest in July last year.

As defence analyst James Kerr has pointed out publicly, there should have been a series of protocols that needed to be followed.

This would traditionally have culminated in a live testing of the competing vehicles in the field.

Instead, there have been no tests, while the specifications of the desired vehicle have been changed several times, confusing the process.

This is in terms of the vehicle's ability to withstand landmine blasts and small arms fire, as well as the number of troops it is supposed to carry and for how long before resupply.

The question some manufacturers are now asking is whether the process was deliberately changed and delayed to favour a particular manufacturer that did not have a suitable vehicle in its manufacturing inventory at the time.