Other duties, including standing in for President Cyril Ramaphosa, meant the familiarisation tour of SA National Defence Force (SANDF) services and divisions by defence and military veterans minister Angie Motshekga wasn’t completed by the set deadline of 17 September.
Motshekga, accompanied by deputies Richard Hlophe and Bantu Holomisa, last week were in Centurion’s Eco Park office estate where the Command and Management Information Systems (CMIS) and Directorate Enterprise Information Systems Management divisions are housed.
They were welcomed by CMIS Division Chief, Major General Mafi Mgobozi where, according to Lieutenant Colonel JE Katz, the trio were given an overview as well as “specific direction regarding the clear reprioritising of requirements, to ensure productive further interactions”. Part of the ministerial briefing dealt with timelines of critical information communication technology (ICT) objectives to be broken down into phases to ensure funding and resources are redirected for ICT to succeed.
The first stop for Motshekga two months into her tenure as the Cabinet Minister responsible for defence and military veterans was in August, two months after being appointed, at SA Army headquarters on the western periphery of the Pretoria central business district (CBD). This was followed by the SA Air Force (SAAF) at Air Force Base (AFB) Waterkloof and the SA Navy (SAN) at its headquarters unit, previously SAS Immortelle, south of Church Square in central Pretoria. The SA Military Health Service (SAMHS) headquarters in Erasmusrand, just east of the Defence Ministry in the Armscor building, was the fourth and final service familiarisation call.
In between, Motshekga and her entourage stopped in at the Hatfield, Pretoria, head office of the Department of Military Veterans (DMV) and South African defence industry (SADI) representatives, including the SA Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Industries Association (AMD) at Saab Grintek Defence in the Centurion Techno Park.
At the start of the familiarisation tour, Department of Defence (DoD) Head of Communication (HoC) Siphiwe Dlamini indicated Armscor, the Military Ombud, Defence Force Service Commission (DFSC), Military Veterans’ Appeal Board, and the Advisory Council on Military Veterans as well as divisions such as Joint Operations and Logistics would be on the ministerial itinerary. “Engagements with soldiers on the ground” was also reportedly in the offing for the ministerial trio.
