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FILE | SAS King Sekhukhune under way off Simon’s Town
The Chief of the South African Navy Vice Admiral Monde Lobese says National Treasury is compromising maritime security with underfunding the entity.
He was addressing the Joint Standing Committee of Defence on the state of the Navy as well as delays in procuring spare parts for vessels and frigates.
It is a frank and candid assessment of the South African Navy and an admission that borders are porous due to underfunding.
“The National Treasury can’t be allowed to be a super department or a government on its own over and above the current government. The National Treasury has been ordered by the commander in chief to fund the SANDF to 1.7% of GDP. We are mindful of the challenges that the country is facing but that can’t be negotiable,” says Lobese.
The committee has undertaken to intervene.
“The President had indicated that there should be a minimum of 1.5% of GDP dedicated to the South African National Defence Force. That was an undertaking and yet in this austerity budget that the Minister of Finance presented, we actually got a real cut in terms of the finances,” says EFF MP Carl Niehaus.
“Same song is being sung that Treasury does not take the department seriously. I would suggest chair and honorable members that we escape this to the Office of the President,” says ANC MP Mzimasi Hala.
“I would support honorable Hala to get the Commander in Chief here into our committee to get to the bottom of the 1.5 sometimes 1.7,” says DA MP Chris Hattingh.
Meanwhile, Lobese says the impact of the underfunding cripples’ operations.
“This process we are following now is causing major delays that is why our platoons can’t go to sea. It’s because we do not have the spares we require immediately for us to undertake these maintenance and upkeep activities as and when it is required. Mr Niehaus says Drakensberg has been non-operational for five years not because of a lack of will from myself, my predecessor or everybody else within the navy, it is because of the need that National Treasury is putting on the neck of the South African Navy to make us not to be able to sail, to fight, to win and remain unchallenged at sea,” Lobese adds.
And also, a warning of global threats to South Africa.
“RSA’s international relations posture has become a threat to the forces of doom around the world. Iran has just been attacked without provoking anyone. Libya was attacked just after been accepted back into the international community and when one of Gaddafi’s sons was interviewed by CNN just after the start of the war, he replied that they relaxed and never rejuvenated their armed forces after being accepted back into the international community. Is this what we or National Treasury wants to happen to us as the Republic of South Africa through their unpatriotic posture of suffocating the SANDF financially.”
The committee has undertaken to meet with National Treasury.
