{"id":402571,"date":"2020-05-28T10:18:35","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T08:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=402571"},"modified":"2020-05-28T10:18:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T08:18:35","slug":"south-africas-army-is-in-a-critical-state-of-decline-heres-how-bad-things-are-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/402571\/south-africas-army-is-in-a-critical-state-of-decline-heres-how-bad-things-are-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa\u2019s army is in a ‘critical state of decline’ – here’s how bad things are right now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans has raised alarms<\/a> <\/strong>about the deteriorating abilities of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).<\/p>\n

In a presentation on Wednesday (27 May), the committee said that it is concerned that the defence force is fast losing its capabilities, owing to successive budget cuts.<\/p>\n

The committee said that this has had a resultant knock-on effect on the entire defence industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the defence force in a state of decline, the country is losing its sovereign capability, something that will take many years to rebuild,” said chairperson of the committee Cyril Xaba.<\/p>\n

Xaba said that the\u00a0committee will, in the next few weeks, have in-depth discussions with the department on these challenges to save the defence force from collapse.<\/p>\n

Declining force<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Department of Defence’s presentation to parliament states that the defence force is in a ‘critical state of decline’ which is characterised by force imbalance, unaffordability of its main operating systems, and an inability to meet current standing defence commitments.<\/p>\n

Left unchecked and at present funding levels, this decline will severely compromise and further fragment South Africa\u2019s defence capability, it said.<\/p>\n

Chief among these concerns are consistent budget cuts as well as the capping of the compensation of employees (CoE) ceiling below the force’s existing strength. This has led to a direct decline in historic actual strength, it said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Department of Defence’s presentation also indicated that the country’s defence industry has suffered in recent years.<\/p>\n

The major defence contractor at this stage is Denel with almost 80% of orders coming from the SANDF, it said.<\/p>\n

It cited specific problems with the closure of the Special Defence Account<\/a><\/strong> which it said will have a serious impact on the local defence industry including the available skill set.<\/p>\n

“In situations of war or external aggression, South Africa will not have a defence-related industry of its own for arms manufacturing and modernisation,” it said.<\/p>\n

“Partly our sovereignty is at risk of being eroded due to future reliance on foreign defence industries.”<\/p>\n

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Very few bright spots\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

When looking at areas such as training, technology and equipment, the Department of Defence indicated that there were very few bright spots.<\/p>\n

Some of the biggest challenges highlighted include:<\/p>\n

Supplies<\/strong><\/p>\n

The department said that there has been a decline in the ability to maintain and sustain military processes and activities especially pertaining to military-specific commodities and equipment. Notably, stock levels are inadequate to support current defence commitments.<\/p>\n

Training<\/strong><\/p>\n

The decline in budget significantly inhibits the ability of the SANDF to provide effective training for individuals, single service and joint domains. As a result, training has been significantly reduced.<\/p>\n

The department said that military capabilities are not prepared at the required level of combat readiness leading to the inability to execute the expected range of operations.<\/p>\n

Equipment and vehicles<\/strong><\/p>\n

The SANDF faces equipment obsolescence and most of the army’s vehicles and other so-called prime mission equipment (PME) are ageing with very slim prospects for modernisation.<\/p>\n

The department said that maintenance backlog will continue with consequent loss of industry expertise and PME unless funding is made available. It warned that a lack of maintenance may also lead to a collapse in PME.<\/p>\n

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Facilities<\/strong><\/p>\n

The underfunding of facilities has resulted in the degradation of the department’s property portfolio. This has had an extreme impact on combat readiness.<\/p>\n

Information<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Department of Defence said that its current enterprise architecture is ‘not coherent, fit for purpose and compatible with modern information systems’.<\/p>\n

It, therefore, does not provide sufficient real-time management information for decision making and compliance to governance requirements.<\/p>\n

“Defence ICT systems are largely legacy systems becoming increasingly unstable and vulnerable to cyber threats.<\/p>\n

“Essential components of the enterprise system suffer down-time resulting in non-compliance with a number of audit and accounting requirements.”<\/p>\n

The department also cited concerns with technology, including concerns around a lack of modernity, the loss of intellectual property and the fact that sovereign technology can no longer be guaranteed.<\/p>\n

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Read: South Africa faces \u2018historic\u2019 Covid-19 economic shock<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans has raised alarms about the deteriorating abilities of the South African National Defence Force (Sandf). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":91336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-402571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402571"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402629,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402571\/revisions\/402629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}