South Africa's defence force is deteriorating fast, but millions more are being spent on salaries annually, leaving little to no funds for much-needed prime equipment and training.

Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Defence has concluded that the South African National Defence Force's (SANDF's) level of defence readiness, including its conventional and secondary military roles, is deteriorating and that it is in urgent need of redress to prevent the loss of capabilities and conventional obsolescence.

This was contained in the committee's Midterm Strategic Review report, which covers matters related to the SANDF's transformation, integration, equity, morale and defence readiness.

The committee noted that a combination of maintenance constraints and a lack of investment in new prime mission equipment impacted directly on the level force readiness.

Of greater concern, though, was misaligned defence expenditure.

Members of Parliament noted the 1998 defence review pegged the defence personnel budget at 40% of the total budget with 30% to be spent on operating costs and the remaining 30% to be spent on capital costs

This was commonly referred to as the 40:30:30 ratio.

"However, the 2015 defence review found that this was only maintained until 2009/10, whereafter personnel spending, as a percentage of the defence budget, climbed substantially beyond the envisaged 40% of the budgetary allocation to 55% by 2011," the report read.

The deterioration of this defence spending trajectory continued in the sixth Parliament.

"By 2022, the DOD (Department of Defence) is expected to spend 68.7% of its allocation on cost of employment (CoE). The implication thereof is a significant reduction in funds available for spending on operations and equipment. Given the high operational demand of the SANDF and the increased spending on CoE, this leaves little funds available for equipment maintenance, upgrades and acquisition, which impacts negatively on defence readiness," the report read.

Regarding the deteriorating equipment of the SANDF, the committee reported that on 16 February 2022, Armscor briefed the committee on the status of maintenance of SA Air Force aircraft, indicating very limited serviceability of aircraft.

The report read, "At the time, none of the SA Air Force's Gripen fighter aircraft were serviceable, thus impacting on the SANDF’s force readiness. Similarly, only one C-130 transport aircraft was serviceable at the time, meaning strategic airlift capabilities are very limited which negatively affects force readiness."

"On 24 August 2022, Armscor informed the committee that new maintenance contracts were now in place for most SA Air Force aircraft. However, during an oversight visit to Bloemfontein in December 2022, further concerns were expressed around aircraft maintenance, notably the ability of Denel Aviation to maintain the Oryx and Rooivalk fleet of the SA Air Force."

Despite the lack of maintained equipment, the government is increasingly calling on the SANDF to assist with law and order.

The SANDF was deployed in 2018 to 2019 to address the pollution of the Vaal River and in 2019 to help police combat crime in the Western Cape.

The SANDF was also involved in several largescale deployments in 2020 and 2021 as part of efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19, and the largescale deployments in 2021 to Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in response to widespread civil unrest.

During the devastating KwaZulu-Natal floods, the SANDF was also deployed.

"The above deployments were in addition to the SANDF's standing deployment of 15 sub-units for the purpose of border safeguarding of South Africa's land borders," the report read.

The SANDF is also involved in external deployments, including the provision of roughly 1 000 soldiers to the UN Peacekeeping Operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the deployment of 1 450 soldiers to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) military mission in Mozambique.

Around 200 South African soldiers, naval and air assets are also used in operations to safeguard the Mozambican Channel.

The report is to be considered.