I don't know whether people have been following the saga over the contract for operating the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism's four patrol vessels (the Sarah Baartman, the Ruth First and the two others the names of which I can't remember).
The DEAT currently contracts the operation of these vessels out to Smit Amandla. Smit Amandla mans and maintains the vessels that then carry the DEAT fisheries inspectors who carry out the actual inspections.
The contract came up for tender, though and, lo and behold, a new empowerment company called Sekunjalo won the tender. If I put it mildly (and I'm choosing my words carefully, Eugene!) Sekunjalo's main strong points in winning the bid were not, uhm, marine operations but, shall we say close connections to certain people in government. Sekunjalo also run a fisheries arm so clearly there would be a conflict of interest if Sekunjalo were both responsible for fisheries inspection and for fishing a bit themselves. At least, the Cape High Court thought so.
Now, they're apparently considering asking the SAN to take over operation of these vessels.
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-03-19-navy ... ender-dealI'll try and dig out a reference, but Defenceweb's Leon Engelbrecht reported that the navy were actually asked to do this job years ago, but came up with a tender price that was ridiculously high.