Dear Editor
The Democratic Alliance (DA) condemns the brazen theft of ammunition from Bloemspruit Air Force Base and demands an immediate, system-wide security overhaul across all SANDF installations.
The DA will today request that the Portfolio Committee Chairperson summon the Minister of Defence, the CSANDF, the SANDF Chief of Logistics and the Chief of the Air Force to, within seven days, table a dated, costed and funded base-security recovery plan with named responsible officers, deadlines and deliverables, together with the outstanding reports ordered on 28 May 2025:
- A report on the functioning and results of the inter-departmental working group in terms of time-bound workplans with set milestones and funding,
- and the report quantifying the total value of equipment and vehicle parts stolen across all base.
This is not an isolated incident; it’s the predictable result of rotten perimeter security, dead alarms, unmonitored CCTV and broken lighting, risks flagged more than a year ago by the Inspector General in an inspection that warned theft was “a matter of time”. The recent break-in went unnoticed by roving guards; ammunition was being kept in a hangar because the ammunition store itself was deemed insecure.
On the 28th May 2025, the Portfolio Committee on Defence & Military Veterans heard evidence of encroachment, theft and infrastructure vandalism at bases and resolved that:
- the Ministers establish an inter-departmental working group (DPWI, DMRE, DALRRD, Human Settlements) to fix security, and
- That the SANDF submit within seven days a report on the total value of equipment and vehicle parts stolen from bases.
Since the Committee’s 28 May 2025 resolutions, nothing has been done: no inter-departmental working group has reported and no seven-day theft-value report has been tabled.
Persistent cable theft at military bases is knocking out lighting, alarms, CCTV and comms—darkening perimeters and leaving sites blind and inviting to thieves and saboteurs, with direct national-security implications.
Parliament has already been briefed on widespread trespassing on SANDF bases — due to informal settlements pressed against or inside base boundaries, fences cut, illegal electricity and water connections, cable theft, and even illegal mining and persistence farming authorised on defence land. Sites flagged include Marievale, Lenz, Defence HQ precinct, 93 Ammunition Depot (Jan Kempdorp), 43 SA Brigade and the Main Ordnance Sub Deport at Wallmannsthal and Wingfield, with partial or stalled evictions and weak inter departmental follow-through.
Regards
Chris Hattingh MP
DA Spokesperson on Defence & Military Veterans