South African Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has highlighted the poor state of much of the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF’s) infrastructure. Addressing senior officers and the media on Thursday, she affirmed that it “is important that we pay urgent attention to this issue”.

“[O]ver the past 20 years we have not paid enough attention to the servicing and improving the state of our facilities,” she said. “The general state of our hospitals, barracks and all our bases leave a lot to be desired. The recent establishment of the Defence Works Formation is a development that should assist us in that regard, but there are too many issues that need to be addressed if this unit is to function effectively.”

One issue is funding and it was necessary to consider options for funding SANDF infrastructure improvements, she noted. “I have however expressed my disappointment that while we decry the underfunding of the Defence Force, we continue to see huge areas of underspending and wastage of resources.”

The Minister also identified other weaknesses and inadequacies in the SANDF. These include in recruitment, training and professionalisation. “The SANDF needs to recruit high calibre people into its ranks in response to the future trajectory of this organisation and the kind of defence force we want to build. We need to pay close attention to the kind of people we should be recruiting, where they are and how best to attract them in the SANDF.”

There was a need to review current institutions to ensure that they can contribute to the professionalisation and “skilling” of the defence force. The SANDF faced short and medium term leadership challenges. “We have an urgent need to prepare future layers leadership through a focused strategy with clearly outlined outcomes.” The current personnel complement was ageing and the military training system had to produce “more competent” officers and non-commissioned officers.

“We have also raised concern about [the] issues of discipline and the worrying signs that slackness, unprofessionalism, corruption and other ills that threaten to degrade our defence force and undo the good work done over the past twenty years,” she alerted. “We are determined that in the short term some of the basics that should have always been in place should be established.”

Mapisa-Nqakula pointed out that the government had used the SANDF and the local defence industry to support scientific research, economic development, training and skills development. She also praised the SANDF’s contributions to peacekeeping operations elsewhere in Africa.