SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL DEFENCE FORCE A MICKEY MOUSE AND A FORMER SHADOW OF ITSELF

We must all agree, our military is a no longer our pride but mockery. We must pause and remember the words of Lieutenant General Ntshavheni Maphaha of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) that we “are unable to wield a stick”, we are not protected and “the politicians, have decided you want a Mickey Mouse defence force”.

Lieutenant General Mpahaha is the Surgeon General of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). He has been in the position since November 2021. Previously before that, he held various positions within the SANDF, including Chief Director Military Health Force Preparation and General Officer Commanding (CEO) of 1 Military Hospital. He has also served on UN peacekeeping missions in the DRC and Liberia.

So, we are not speaking of someone who doesn’t know what he is talking about. Few days ago, the Deputy Minister of Defense, General Bantu Holomisa, speaking on the Clement Manyathela Show on 702, exposed that:

“Soldiers being carried by military buses going to a violent situation, it showed the defence equipment is obsolete. I cannot give another explanation, and if we were to be attacked, yes, we would respond, but I am not that confident about the state of readiness of the SANDF. Let us not mislead the people. I am not here to spin, but I must tell you the truth.”

Furthermore, he added that this is nothing new because “every (defence) minister I can think of, they have been complaining since time immemorial that the defence is declining. How many defence reviews have been produced and the National Treasury has just ignored? They even ignored the president in 2023, who said, the budget of defence must move from 0.57% of the GDP to 1.5% of the GDP,”

The United States military expenditure represented about 3.5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Kuwait 4.8%, Algerian 21.4, Israel 33.7%, Netherland 23.6%, India 74.4%, Russian 7.1%, China 1.7%, Rwanda 1.2%, Lesotho 1.54%, Botswana 2.38%.

This scenario tells a story about our seriousness as a country against everyone in the world and even our neighbours. The apartheid government had a military expenditure of 5.3% of GDP in 1977. The apartheid government took a deliberate action in 1964, to establish Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor) with an intend to produce high-quality military equipment.

Armscor was formed in response to international sanctions and the need for a national arms industry. The organization’s original attention was on acquiring and manufacturing weaponries for the South African Defence Force. During the 1960s and 1970s, Armscor produced a great deal of South Africa’s armament as the state faced a tightening UN arms embargo. With the creation of Denel in 1992, the new South African government changed and conveyed Armscor, as Denel was formed to take over the production and research facilities of the Armscor, including its subsidiaries and over 15,000 employees.

It is an open secret that our Denel today is facing serious challenges of existence that affect military operations and performance. In short, the Denel or Armscor or Military we knew, does not posses’ military superiority and armaments we used to have. We are now depended on foreign suppliers and have nothing unique to design and claim as our own except that we live in historical experience and reality.

Why am I raising all these concerns? My understanding is that security of a nation state should be guaranteed, and it is the role of our military to secure and defend us from any potential attack including the protection of our borders on the land, seas or skies.

Moreover, our military should be able to stand in in cases of disasters and maintaining internal security including the protection of our national interest.

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