The cash-strapped SA National Defence Force (SANDF) forked out millions of rand on a chartered Air Zimbabwe flight to bring home eight trainee pilots who had failed their eye tests in Cuba.

Already battling budget cuts, a crumbling infrastructure and an internal board of inquiry into nearly R1bn of wasteful expenditure, the latest saga involves the SANDF’s vaunted Cuban military training exchange programme, code-named Project Thusano.

Three weeks after their arrival in August, eight of the 12 SA Air Force (SAAF) trainees were told they had failed an eye test conducted with a BIC ballpoint pen and were kicked off the programme. The test required trainees to follow the movement of the pen with their eyes. ..