The holders of government’s purse strings – National Treasury (NT) – was again warned its budgetary constraints on Minister Angie Motshekga’s Department of Defence (DoD) where the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) is the major constituent will see “ongoing decline in capabilities and performance”.
The warning, in the same month Parliament heard State-owned defence and technology conglomerate Denel was in crisis, was delivered on Wednesday (23 April) by Dakota Legoete, Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans (PCDMV) chair. He spoke after DoD representatives presented the strategic and annual performance plans for the 2025/26 financial year.
The presentation saw the PCDMV issue a statement noting, among others, “it is clear [the DoD] can anticipate another chronic underwriting of budgets, which will continue the decline in defence capabilities”.
The Parliamentary Communication Services statement, quoting Legoete, has it: “The committee is seriously concerned and would like to engage NT to reconsider their allocation in line with the 2024 presidential directive that ordered the defence budget to be moved from 0.7 to 1.5% of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] to redress chronic underfunding”.
Lack of maintenance for prime mission equipment (PME) is cited as “a deep concern” and while not named, this can reasonably be assumed to include most of the SA Air Force (SAAF) inventory as well as the frigates, submarines and fleet replenishment ship.
The statement takes SANDF leadership to task, saying “despite previous commitments the committee noted the repeated failure to deliver a fresh, effective strategy to reverse the decline”. While the committee acknowledged plans to develop a strategy for force rejuvenation and curb rising personnel costs were acknowledged with the PCDMV, “emphasising” current plans as presented “lack innovation and did not seek ways to enhance SANDF operational capacity within tight fiscal constraints”.
SANDF and DoD management were told by Legoete to “use allocated funds wisely since there is concern about growing irregular and fruitless expenditure and, furthermore, to answer all audit queries as raised by the Auditor-General (AG) to reduce an adverse outlook on its books”.
Legoete asked that the DoD “engage” with NT on finding “innovative ways to reduce the cost of employees (CoE) without undermining the department’s human capabilities”.
