Defence and Military Veterans minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has been accused by an opposition party of displaying an unshakeable commitment to maintaining the luxurious lifestyle of cabinet.

The minister dodged a parliamentary question from DA MP Kobus Marais about how an increase in the allocation of flight hours for VIPs would impact on the defence readiness of the South African Air Force.

“The flying hours recorded are informed by the serviceability of aircrafts. Furthermore the allocation for the VVIP flying hours is a specific allocation and it is ring fenced. This allocation was approved by National Treasury‚” was her reply.

Marais claimed in a statement on Tuesday that in the current budget‚ the total number of flying hours for training and mandatory defence needs had been cut while the VVIP transport allocation stood at 1‚000 hours which equalled 20% of the budgeted flight time allocated to the air force.

“This follows the Minister’s commitment to purchase a new VVIP jet for the President‚ which could cost up to R4 billion of taxpayers’ money. As it stands‚ pilots are already unable to fulfil flight time requirements‚ and hasty training trips to foreign countries have to be made to cope‚” said Marais.

Commenting on flying hours being determined by the “serviceability of aircraft”‚ he said the air force had suffered a 37.6% budget cut to technical support services‚ so the situation was likely to deteriorate.