Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The SA National Defence Force's budget allocation needs to be urgently reviewed to prevent South Africa's defence capabilities being completely denuded, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Tuesday [9 September].

Briefing the media at parliament, he said there was now no doubt that the defence budget had to be increased.

The attitude towards defence spending had to be completely reviewed. Decisions should not be taken on an emotional basis, or to avoid criticism, but rather on the basis of reality and what the country needed, he said.

South Africa's current defence spending of only 1.6 per cent of GDP - which even included the strategic arms acquisition programme - was too low to enable the defence force to fulfil its obligations and maintain its capabilities.

Most other countries allocated about two per cent of GDP to defence and considering the South African economy was the strongest in the region, this figure was not unreasonable.

By no stretch of the imagination could that be regarded as excessive, as it left 98 per cent for spending elsewhere, he said.

Following a recent assessment by the defence force's command structures, it was estimated that the SANDF currently needed an additional R2-billion to do everything it was required to do.

Government had been extremely thrifty in its defence spending, but the defence force was steadily losing capabilities, which would be very expensive to replace when the need eventually arose.

Defence capabilities could not be bought "off the shelf", and it would in any event be much cheaper to maintain them instead of losing them altogether.

It was no longer possible for the defence force to continue to "whittle down" its capabilities because of inadequate funding, because then South Africa "will be denuded", Lekota said.

South Africa's obligations and commitments to peacekeeping operations on the African continent had also increased pressure on the already over-stretched budget.

The present size of the budget would not allow the defence force to extend much further afield.

"If there is a need for further peacekeeping involvement, both the budget and the size of the SANDF will have to be reviewed."

This was now under discussion by the department and the defence portfolio committee, Lekota said.