The Auditor-General of South Africa has instructed the SANDF to wind down Project Kgala, the Cuban military co-operation arrangement that replaced the long-running Project Thusano in 2025, the navy told Parliament this month. The order lands as the audit office also told MPs that the Department of Defence missed half of its planned performance targets and is sitting on R16.43 billion of irregular expenditure that has not been investigated.
Rear Admiral James Matshimane, the SA Navy’s Head of Policy, Strategy and Planning, told the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans that an instruction to stop had already been given, according to defenceWeb. Training courses already underway will be completed before Kgala is formally closed.
What the audit office found on the Cuban projects
DefenceWeb reported in May that the Auditor-General had made a finding on Kgala, after the Office of the Chief State Law Advisor gave a legal opinion that the arrangement should end. The AG disclosed R1.699 billion in irregular expenditure on Thusano, and Kgala reporting identifies a further R278.6 million in irregular expenditure under the successor arrangement.
The Department of Defence told Parliament in March 2025 that Thusano cost about R3.04 billion over a decade. Kgala spending includes R100.3 million for chartering aircraft, and one flight, costing nearly R34 million, took more than 200 SANDF personnel to Cuba for a graduation ceremony.
The audit office also questioned what the money bought. It found that Cuban technical services cost substantially more than comparable South African services. On the medical side, only six of the first group of 21 medical students completed the 18-month integration course at the University of Pretoria, and Cuban medical qualifications do not automatically allow graduates to practise in South Africa. AGSA raised the problem with Parliament’s public accounts committee in November 2024, saying the programme lacked proper research and accreditation, the Parliamentary Monitoring Group record shows.
Department missed half its targets
In a separate briefing reported by defenceWeb, AGSA senior manager Eduard Coetzee presented the audit office’s input for the committee’s budgetary review and recommendations report on the departments and entities that report to Defence Minister Angie Motshekga. The Department of Defence did not achieve half of its planned unclassified performance indicators. Misses included multinational exercises, the border safeguarding optimisation plan and SADC Standby Force compliance. Neither the SA Air Force nor the SA Navy met its targets for hours flown or time at sea.
The AG called the state of unserviceable and repairable assets a significant concern. The department holds 185,897 unserviceable assets, mostly specialised military equipment such as weapons, and 207,801 repairable assets that include Gripen and Hawk aircraft. Of 395,410 specialised military assets, 82.33% are more than 30 years old. Boards of inquiry into irregular spending are not set up or finalised on time, the briefing said.
Armscor, Denel and the wider audit results
The 2025-26 audit results, presented to the same committee at the end of September, cover five bodies with a combined budget of R63.2 billion, The Citizen reported. The Department of Defence received a qualified opinion with findings. The Department of Military Veterans, Armscor and the Castle Control Board were unqualified with findings. Denel received a disclaimer for the ninth year in a row, which we covered in our report on the state arms maker’s results. All five had material findings on compliance with key legislation.
Unresolved unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure stands at R25.9 billion, mostly the department’s R25.4 billion. New material irregularities carry R443 million in estimated losses, and on five of the seven linked to the department no appropriate action was taken. Armscor was the only entity to pass 50% of its main performance targets, while Denel reached 43%. The AG said weak support from Denel and Armscor limited the department’s ability to sustain and modernise its platforms.
What the minister and MPs said
Motshekga told the committee that the department meets the AG regularly and has noted MPs’ comments, The Citizen reported. In her account, work has started, but the problems are unlikely to be fully resolved by next year, and progress will be reported. DA MP Emma Powell called the unresolved irregular expenditure “a national embarrassment.”
Committee chair Dakota Legoete asked for a phased plan setting out when the remaining Kgala courses end, and wants the project included in a remedial audit action plan. DA defence spokesperson Chris Hattingh said ending Kgala is not the same as a completed shutdown and called for a termination instruction, a full reconciliation of spending and a costed exit plan. The DA argued in September 2025 that Kgala was a rebranding of Thusano, and in October 2025 demanded publication of all Cuba-linked contracts.
Why it matters for public money and the defence industry
The AG has recorded the Cuban spending as irregular and found the foreign technical services cost more than local alternatives. Hattingh argues this has denied skilled South Africans work. For local maintenance firms, engineers and suppliers, closing Kgala opens a question over who will service SANDF equipment, and whether that work will be procured competitively.
The wider findings point the same way. An ageing fleet, low serviceability and weak support from Armscor and Denel mean a large repair and modernisation backlog sits on the department’s books. How quickly Parliament forces the department to settle its R25.9 billion backlog of unresolved spending, and how it replaces the Cuban technical support, will shape where that maintenance budget goes next.
