Opponents of the Protection of State Information Bill seemed agreed on one thing:  while there is a need for secrecy legislation – state security, defence, and all that – what the government has come up with goes way beyond what’s required: it lends itself to abuse, and it will clearly be used to cover up corruption.

For what, in heaven’s name, does a country that’s an intelligence-free zone and a military no-hoper need secrecy legislation?

South Africa’s intelligence services are used for nothing more than settling political scores; the custodian of  intelligence, State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, is so dumb he gets involved in public spats with his most senior spies, suggests that all those opposing the secrecy legislation must be controlled by foreign agents, and fails to notice that his wife is a drugs mule (“Stormy Weather”, nose116).

It is a country that spends billions on planes and ships that aren’t fit for purpose simply because the purveyors of the hardware paid the biggest bribes; a country where the soldiers go out on strike and then get involved in violent clashes with the police; a country where civilians can hire Air Force Hercules C130 aircraft for their skydiving activities (nose110). It is also a country where senior naval officers moonlight by operating removals businesses (nose110); a country where the Minister of Defence is a haughty glamourpuss who’s far more comfortable in designer outfits than fatigues, and who has the job because Daddy was a somebody; a country that would probably be in shit if Andorra launched an attack.

Militarily, we’re a bunch of clowns, everyone knows it, and it’s pointless trying to cover it up.

Which brings us to Simon’s Town Naval Dockyard, the home of our fearsome SA Navy, and still the home of four of the six Lindau class minesweepers purchased in the early 2000s, and which, like the later frigates and submarines, were a complete waste of money. The minesweepers gathered dust for years (with one being destroyed in a missile exercise), until the navy finally decided to get rid of them. But it was a bit embarrassing to sell off ships that had never been used, so it was all hush-hush, with no public announcements. When salvage (and former navy) man Gary Mills (“Portnet”, nose124), got to hear that the ships were up for sale and started making enquiries about how he could tender, it caused consternation: “Who told you these ships were available?”

Eventually Mills was told to use a generic tender form for his bid, and in 2009 he received formal notification from Armscor that his bid had been rejected. Instead the five minesweepers went to Gary van der Merwe (he of Huey helicopters flying around Cape Town fame) for R1.4 million. But this didn’t rid the navy of its problem. Van der Merwe fixed up one of the vessels and sold it on, but the remaining four are still tied up in Simon’s Town.

That recently prompted the not-so-switched-on senior officer of the dockyard, Captain Glen Knox, to ask Mills what was going on with the minesweepers (perhaps if Intelligence Minister Cwele reads this, he’ll figure that the state may well want to hold on to these minesweepers lest it does decide to nationalise the mines).

Mills, like many other civilians, goes in and out of Simon’s Town Naval Dockyard at will – for the past 30 years he’s been using the Navy’s dockyard crane and slipway, facilities which the navy rents out to the public together with its synchrolift.

Mills is using the dockyard at present because he’s involved in a project for the Institute for Marine Technologies involving the installation and maintenance of a desalinator in False Bay, and he launches the boat he uses to get out to the desalinator from the dockyard.

Mills estimates that the majority of the people in the dockyard at any given time are civilians, and he says that certain well-connected people, like former Simon’s Town mayor Harry Dilley, even have their offices on the base, and are allowed to secure their private boats there.

There’s no consistency or logic in any of this, complains Mills (tell that to anyone who did national service, Gary). Mills needs access to the dockyard’s outer wall so he can remove salvaged units from the water and load them on to a truck – a job that may take three hours. But the navy won’t give its consent. Knox (with whom Mills served back in the day) refused the request on the grounds that the navy discourages civilian activity in the dockyard, and certainly not money-making activity.

As for Knox’s immediate superior, Rear Admiral K Louw, he doesn’t answer Mills’s letters, nor does her serene loveliness Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. The DA’s Mark Wiley has also been unable to help.

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