Dear Editor
Whether on ground, in the air or at sea, the SANDF sits helpless.
The Department of Defence spends more the 68% of its budget on employees yet sits with aged and unskilled personnel.
The SANDF cannot defend our skies, as only 2 of 26 Gripens are operational and none of its C130’s are airworthy. Our country’s maritime defence capacity is also shocking, as the Navy only has one frigate and MMIPV to patrol our seas, with none of its submarines functional.
Even more appallingly, while the SANDF commenced on a military review in 2015, the Auditor General’s report on the Department of Defence for 2023/24 shows that 0% of the Department’s target to evaluate the SA Defence Review 2015 has been achieved.
The President, as early as January 2024, instructed then Minister of Defence, Thandi Modise, and the Department to develop an “Interim Force Concept, Revised Military Strategy and Revised Force Design and Force Structure” for consideration by Cabinet and Parliament. Its recommendation was to double Defence’s budget, from approximately 0.7% of GDP to 1.5%. DoD’s current budget is already has been subject to immense wastage, and we have written to the Minister for clarity on the whether Cabinet has considered this.
This emerged in a report by the Minister of Defence in response to a DA during an oral question-and-answer session in the NCOP on the state of our Defence Force. The report also revealed that South Africa has reached an inflection point, where the Republic must decide on the kind of Defence Force it wants and can afford. It states that national security choices must be foremost made on domestic concerns.
This reflection, however, cannot occur due to the Department of Defence’s incessant maladministration. The Auditor-General’s report for 2023/24 highlighted rampant unauthorised expenditure in the Department, to the sum of R3,4 billion; irregular expenditure which amounted R338 million and fruitless and wasteful expenditure which drastically increased from R2,569 million in 2022/23 to R51 million in 2023/24.
Further, the SANDF has been allocated an additional R2.1 billion towards the mission in the DRC, which it cannot fulfil.
The SANDF needs to urgently focus on getting the basics right by cleaning up maleficence and investing in the technology as well as capabilities it desperately needs to fulfil its constitutional mandate.
Regards
Nicholas Gotsell MP
DA Member on the Select Committee on Security and Justice