The SANDF's Military Command Council just issued a press statement on its irregular acquisition of Interferon alfa-2b from Cuba last year.

It's an arrogant, ignorant, remorseless, and tone-deaf response that proves the SANDF's top brass have learnt nothing from this debacle. 1/

For some background, Military Command is the highest decision-making body in the SANDF, headed by the Chief of the SANDF General Shoke and consisting of the heads of the Air Force, Army, Navy, Military Health Service, Joint Operations, and Defence Intelligence. 2/

In this release General Shoke and the heads of the SANDF's services are denying that they did anything wrong in acquiring the Interferon alfa-2b, while essentially implying that its decisions in this regard are immune from outside oversight & intervention. It's bizarre. 3/

No mention is made of the spoilage of 40% of the shipment owing to poor record keeping that resulted from running this outside the regular MHS logistics supply chain. No justification is given for breaking those procurement rules either, or addressing the AG's other findings. 4/

I don't call for resignations often, as I feel those calls lose their power when made too often. But in this case it's clear: General Shoke must be made to resign for wasting R215 million on an unsuitable drug & his demonstrated lack of remorse, or understanding, months later. 5/

Further, if the heads of all the other services on the Military Command Council concurred with the decision to issue this release then they, too, must be forced to resign. It cannot be acceptable for the SANDF to reject the findings of the Attorney-General in this way. 6/

Let's go through the statement part by part, to illustrate just how dishonest it is.

This is false, there are no peer-reviewed studies showing any beneficial effect of Heberon in treating COVID-19. No country has adopted it for large-scale use for that purpose. 7/

Again, this is false. No peer-reviewed study has found any benefit from Heberon, in fact the opposite is true: Proper studies on it have found no benefit. There's a reason we leave decisions on medicine approval to SAHPRA: They know how to read the reports of efficacy studies. 8/

Once again the SANDF's commanders make a medical claim without any justification or an understanding of the actual mechanism. All interferons are not equal, and while interferon-beta has shown limited promise interferon-alfa has shown none. 9/

What this paragraph doesn't tell you is that the Military Health Service did not want Heberon. Major-General Lesley Ford, the Chief Director for Military Health Service Support, said as much in a memo to the SANDF's senior commanders, shown in the second screenshot. 10/

This paragraph admits that permission was not sought before importing the drug, and has very odd wording that raises further questions. What exactly was 'the purposed use detailed in that application', and why not spell it out? 11/

The final paragraph is a cop out, and misleading. Not only are the Surgeon General's powers not unlimited and immune from national laws on medication, but as Maj-Gen Ford's statements show this procurement wasn't done through the Military Health Service or at their request. 12/

These are not minor mistakes, they are serious misrepresentations of the facts of the situation & the findings of the Attorney General. Either the SANDF's senior commanders are lying to us, or they genuinely believe these claims. Either possibility is completely unacceptable. 13/

None of us, neither as media or the general public, should accept being misled in this way. This needs to result in resignations by the SANDF Chief and any others involved. 14/

After all, it's clear that we can't trust the SANDF to investigate itself, because the culprits appear to be its most senior commanders. So those resignations must be accompanied by a wide-ranging investigation by an outside team. We can't allow this to happen again. 15/15