The South African military will no longer be using the services of Cuban personnel to service its equipment. This is according to Rear Admiral James Matshimane, who told Parliament that an order to end the programme had been issued.

Project Kgala, which sees Cuban technical and engineering specialists working on vehicles and other assets, was launched early last year, but it replaced another, similar initiative, Project Thusano, which commenced in 2015. (Operation Thusano also involved training programmes for South Africans in Cuba.)

The stated objective of these programmes was to tap Cuban know-how, since that country has learned to maintain ageing equipment despite limited resources and access to replacement materials. This has analogues in the neglect and decay that the underfunded South African military contends with.

Critics, however, have argued that it operates as an aid conduit to Cuba (which has been a significant recipient of South African support over the years, including a bizarre demand that officers donate a portion of their money to the island), is uneconomical, and sidelines South Africans’ own skills and expertise.

It has also been the subject of official criticism.

A report by the Auditor-General last year raised serious concerns about Project Thusano’s compliance with public-finance rules, finding that it had accumulated R1.7 billion in irregular expenditure. Procurement arrangements with Cuba bypassed competitive processes required by South African regulations, while no cost-benefit analysis had been conducted to establish whether the expenditure was justified.

The Auditor-General also found that Cuban labour cost up to 3.8 times more than employing South African technicians, while medical training in Cuba was 136% more expensive than local alternatives. Questions were also raised about whether the project delivered sustainable skills transfers to the South African National Defence Force.

This comes as the Communist Cuban regime faces its most serious crisis since it took power in 1959. As The Common Sense has reported, decades of economic mismanagement, coupled with a hardened American stance, has driven popular anger at the government, placing its survival in doubt.