{"id":4691,"date":"2022-03-31T16:44:20","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T16:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans"},"modified":"2022-03-31T19:33:48","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T19:33:48","slug":"govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans","title":{"rendered":"Govt ditches Fighter jet Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span>President Mokgweetsi Masisi\u2019s administration will not be going ahead with plans to procure fighter jets because of budget constraints, the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Kagiso Mmusi, has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The Botswana Defence Force (BDF) has been allocated P4 billion out of P10 billion under its parent ministry.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview this week, Minister Mmusi said that only P1 billion will be used to strengthen the country\u2019s military capacity in areas such as infrastructure development and maintenance, procurement and refurbishment of air assets, maintenance of military vehicles, communication equipment and defence equipment and that no provision has been made for procurement of fighter jets.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Minister Mmusi said since he assumed office in September 2019, the government has never come anywhere near procuring fighter jets for the BDF.<br \/>\n\u201cAs much as it our wish to have fighter jets, we have never discussed the<br \/>\npurchase of any since I came into this office,\u201d he told The Botswana Gazette this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is true that our current fighter jets are old and we need new ones, but our financial situation as a ministry does not allow us. Military equipment is very expensive, and from this budget around P80 million will be used to maintain and service our aircraft and airports. We cannot do anything more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although the BDF\u2019s attempt to procure fighter jets was mired in controversy under former president Ian Khama, the army has consistently insisted on the need to replace its old Canadair CF-5 Freedom Fighter jet fleet which currently consists of 10 F-5A fighters and 3 F-5D trainers, all purchased second-hand from Canada in 1996.<\/p>\n<p>Because of budget constraints, experts proposed upgraded that the BDF Air Wing\u2019s F-5 fleet instead of buying new aircraft in 2013. Before former president Ian Khama exited office in April 2018, the government had approved funds to procure Gripen jets from Sweden. Reports subsequently suggested that the deal collapsed following a fallout between Khama and his successor, President Masisi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\">Botswana<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. President Mokgweetsi Masisi\u2019s administration will not be going ahead with plans to procure fighter jets because of budget constraints, the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Kagiso Mmusi, has revealed. The Botswana Defence Force (BDF) has been allocated P4 billion out of P10 billion under its parent ministry. In an interview this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":4690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,12,16],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-4691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Govt ditches Fighter jet Plans - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Mokgweetsi Masisi\u2019s administration will not be going ahead with plans to procure fighter jets because of budge ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Govt ditches Fighter jet Plans\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Mokgweetsi Masisi\u2019s administration will not be going ahead with plans to procure fighter jets because of budge ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-31T16:44:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-31T19:33:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/03\/img-624601f36050b.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1170\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Govt ditches Fighter jet Plans\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-31T16:44:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-31T19:33:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans\"},\"wordCount\":345,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2022\/03\/img-624601f36050b.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/govt-ditches-fighter-jet-plans\",\"name\":\"Govt ditches Fighter jet Plans - 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