First corvette arrives
2003-11-04 13:29
Cape Town - The first of four naval corvettes bought from a German company under a controversial multi-billion dollar arms deal has arrived in Cape Town on Tuesday morning, a senior navy officer said.
"This morning the SAS Amatola sailed into Table Bay, after setting off from Germany in the middle of last month," said Captain Rusty Higgs.
"She is the first delivery of four corvettes ordered by the South African government," he told AFP.
The Amatola is a Meko-class corvette, built by the Hamburg-based company Blohm and Voss, and has a displacement of 3 500 tons.
Higgs said the ship has so-called stealth characteristics which gave it a low radar profile. It would be armed with both surface-to-surface missiles and surface-to-air missiles in addition to various guns.
The South African navy was expecting the delivery of the three other corvettes, spaced three months apart, Higgs said, as part of an overall programme which will see the navy also receive three new submarines.
The delivery is part of a $5.5bn arms overhaul in which the government has ordered aircraft, helicopters, patrol boats and submarines from five European firms.
- AFP