Airfire wrote:
As it was chartered by the presidency,it was used and probably hired at a higher rate to make the Gupta's richer in any case,Zuma was pushing this in all regards with numerous government movements to make sure he got a kick back as well from the Gupta's,Ramaphosa is no angel and was well aware of this weather he loaned the plane or not,the SANDF used our money tax monies .Ramaphosa I am sure had dealings with the Gupta's as well being the wealthy business man that he is,but this we will never know.Execujet also is the maintenance organization for most SAAF VIP aircraft as well so they will still offer aircraft to SANDF..I am sure when needed.
Nope, it was chartered as part of the transversal Treasury contract, RT61, which establishes fixed rates for aircraft hires. I wrote a bit about it a while ago:
https://www.africandefence.net/vvip-charters-and-the-south-african-air-force/As part of this process it was National Treasury way back in 2014 (before it was so thoroughly compromised by Gigaba) that issued the tender and decided on Execujet and Fortune Air as the two winners, offering each a share of the relevant travel requests. Both are compensated for a class of aircraft, not specific aircraft, so it's not possible to pay one aircraft owner more than another for the same aircraft and flight type. The SAAF has no control, when using RT61, over which companies to charter from.
Previously, the SAAF (like other government departments) used RT61 at arm's length, just sending mission requests to Execujet & Fortune Air, depending on which had availability and which proportion of the tender they'd been given, accepting whatever aircraft was provided, and paying the standard RT61 rates. That's the point of transversal contracts like this, as they let departments avoid nearly all the contract administration overhead for standard services.
The SAAF is still permitted to issue its own contracts, provided they comply with the PFMA, and since RT61-2014 expired earlier this year they've had to do that for all chartered flights, but I can confirm from my own sources that both ZS-OAK and Moti's jet were chartered under RT61 without the SAAF giving any thought to who owned the aircraft.
Treasury's working on a new RT61 contract, which will presumably then once again be the main way that the SAAF charters VIP jets.
Back on topic with regard to ZS-OAK, the court ruling is that Westdawn must hand the aircraft over to the CAA for safe-keeping at Lanseria within 15 days of the judgement, failing which the CAA must cancel the aircraft's registration with immediate effect. This doesn't mean the Guptas are certain to lose the aircraft, as the ruling states that the aircraft must merely be kept in neutral hands or grounded until the outcome of a court case between EDC and the Guptas in the UK has been finalised.