The state of the South African National Defence Force has been questioned following the words of Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Bantu Holomisa, who stated that the Defence Force was not equipped to defend the Republic, pointing to outdated equipment and chronic underfunding.
Holomisa has further noted that the issue of underfunding had been raised by ministers in the past, only to be ignored by the National Treasury, leading to present inefficiencies.
Speaking on VOC Newsbeat, Helmoed Heitman, defence consultant and analyst, concurred with the deputy minister, further stating that since 1995, almost every political party and military expert has requested the defence budget be broadened to no avail.
“Since 1995, every speaker of every political party has asked for better funding for the defence, yet nothing has happened despite multiple warnings. We have also had a service chief warning if the funding doesn’t change, and a few years back we had the chief of the navy sitting next to the then minister at a press conference stating that if the navy didn’t get proper funding, we’d lose the submarines and the frigates,” added Heitman.
For Heitman, the present state of the military forces is reversible with proper intervention, but he notes that the true loss is with the personnel, with highly experienced members of the military forces leaving the profession after sitting idly by and being underpaid.
“More difficult is going to be replacing those who have left and are leaving because it’s often the most experienced people that leave, and pilots that can’t fly don’t want to be sitting around all day, so they go somewhere they can fly, so they resign, and they leave. The same applies across the services; they need to be replaced, and ten years’ experience is ten years’ experience; you can’t shortcut that,” said Heitman.
Listen to the full interview here:
