Finally Chairperson, allow me to direct myself to my soldiers who are listening to this debate. Your responsibilities are enormous, but I have confidence in you. Last year I put a moratorium on travel by the generals to ensure that they gave themselves time to come to you in your bases, to interact with you, acquaint themselves with your conditions. The morale of the soldiers is their responsibility. I have not lifted the moratorium yet. We are keenly aware of your commitment and patriotism. You do me so proud.
The budget of Defence is a serious challenge and I hope I will be able to persuade Members of Parliament today to help us motivate for an increase. They are all very concerned about our budget. As we lobby for an increase, it will mean that for the time being, we will have to find ways of raising additional resources. Let us make ourselves resourceful, be ready to clean up our environment and save where we can.
When you go out on peace missions on the continent, you bring honour to our country, when you build bridges in Cofimvaba; you restore our confidence in you. Rosina, our ten year old, has been adopted by us. We will look after her education. Wherever you are the community around you looks up to you. Let’s work out ways of adding value to them.
Many of our people appreciate the work you do. Let me read you an excerpt from a letter written by a member of the public, Mr Neil Galvin requesting that Parliament allocate more resources to Defence.
“Submission to the Standing Committee on Appropriations”
Chairperson, thank you for the opportunity to express my concerns. I am not a defence professional, nor am I an expert in the fields of parliamentary procedures or defence matters. So please bear with me for short while.
In the current DoD strategic plan for the next three fiscal years, it is planned to cut flying hours for our brand new Gripen fighter fleet from 550 hours this year, to only 250 hours annually afterwards. Now the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation requires about 200 flying hours per pilot per annum, to remain qualified. (That is for a single pilot). These are facts that can easily be found on the open source internet.
We have from the fiscal year 2011/12 budgeted that amount of hours, for our entire fighter squadron. This is clearly a sad state of affairs that obviously puts people’s lives and extremely expensive equipment at risk, since pilots won’t fly enough to stay combat ready. One needs not be an expert to ask oneself, why did we buy such expensive equipment if we don’t plan to make optimum use of it? Is this not a gross misuse of tax-payers money? We must save this situation while we still can. Pilots want to fly. If you don’t give them flying hours they will resign and all the money spent training them will be lost.
The Constitution of the Republic mandates the SANDF to defend the country against aggression as its primary function. It is the secondary and more used functions of the SANDF that is often overlooked and forgotten about. This is an organisation that uplifts the youth. That performs civil security and rescue functions. That makes us proud during tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup. That provides security, so that all of us can sleep better at night.
Also a country with first world defence capabilities has a lot more diplomatic clout at the negotiating table, than a country without these capabilities. This is a very undiplomatic thing to say, but it is true and only a fool will deny this. With South Africa playing a bigger and bigger part in the international community and on the African continent, we need a capable defence force that can back up our initiatives. South Africa is highly praised for her peace keeping role on the continent. I put it to you chair person that this would not have been the case had it not been for the SANDF.
A country with an economy the size of that of South Africa’s economy should have a well trained, well equipped Defence Force. As a middle income country, we can afford it without breaking the bank.”
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Defence
4 May 2010
