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THE state of the South African National Defence Force is shocking. This is the impression of a commission appointed by government to look into conditions under which soldiers are serving.
The commission’s head, Judge Ronnie Bosielo, told a parliamentary committee yesterday: “[SANDF] members are demoralised. They are disgruntled, they don’t know where they stand. Something must be done about it. These are the harsh realities we are confronted with.”
You can read Brendan Boyle’s article which appeared in The Times today here for more detail.
It makes for depressing reading with soldiers living in “sub-human” conditions and earning around R3000 a month after 10 years of service.
How did this come about?
Well, for one thing, South Africa doesn’t need a massive standing army of the sort that the apartheid authorities mobilised to “protect” the borders and impose undeclared martial law on the citizenry. Everybody knows this and so budgetting for soldiers is not a priority.
For another, the government decided to spend billions acquiring sophisticated weaponry instead of spending money on the people in the military. Cynics might say that buying armaments pays better bribes than paying soldiers properly.
So we find ourselves with a dangerous situation. Tens of thousands of people trained in combat with access to automatic weapons and desperate for cash. It should not surprise us that the outcome is massive theft of automatic rifles from armouries and countless incidents of crime involving soldiers.

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Comments

 

Ian Doha

November 19, 2009 at 11:09 am

The problem goes much deeper than this.

To a large extent the state of the SAND is symptomatic of the country at large. People everywhere are disgruntled. People everywhere are demoralised.

I commented on the state of the SANDF in the other article in today’s paper. No need to repeat.

The general inability of (the people in) the State to govern properly, fairly and without discrimination (racial or otherwise) is starting to take its toll on the populace at large. People feel inherently unsafe, and it does not relate to crime only. We feel unsafe about our future, our jobs, our country, our familites. It is as if everything in this country is poised on a knife’s edge. We are insecure, and as Buzan stated in his well-known book on the subject: “There can be no talk of national security in the face or personal insecurity.” Enter the SANDF that has to contribute to national security.

This has to be close to the final nail in the coffin. If the guarrantors of our safety then feel this way, what hope for us mere mortals? I was a military man for 20 years. There is absolutely no comparison between the SADF and SANDF ito capability, discipline, morale, leadership, sense of purpose, etc.

Add this last bit of depressing news to a country that is going through issues with SABC, Escom, Armscor, local government inabilities, Aids, ASA, and – hell! Someone give me a blunt knife!

 

General Electric

November 19, 2009 at 11:43 am

Spot on. Remember how the SANDF covered itself in glory during the invasion of Lesotho?
This demoralised military is barely fit to march in street parades, let alone handle peacekeeping duties on the continent.

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