A cat runs away as members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) patrol the streets of the Johannesburg CBD, 1 April 2020, during a nationwide lockdown. South Africa's lockdown imposes strict curfews and shutdowns in an attempt to halt the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus. Picture: Michel Bega
Despite the fact its ranks are dominated by the old and the unfit and its fighting units are understrength, the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) has called a halt to intakes of new recruits.
This is despite a heightening situation of tension on SA’s border with Mozambique, where Islamic jihadists are engaged in an insurgent war against the government.
The SANDF announced this week that no new intakes for the annual 2021-2022 Military Skills Development System (MSDS) would be accepted.
The military blamed the Covid-19 situation.
At the same time, it warned potential recruits that application forms for the programme currently circulating on the internet were old documents.
An officer in the force, who did not want to be named for fear of jeopardising his job, said the military urgently needed new blood.
“We are understaffed and the officers are tired, sick and some have been demobilised.”
Director at African Defence Review Darren Olivier said the decision to halt all recruiting for this year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic was the wrong approach.
“It will cause harmful knockon effects to the SANDF’s training and personnel development pipeline that will cost more in the long run than the extra measures or precautions it would have needed to handle an intake now.”
Olivier said the system depended on a steady stream of personnel moving through various training units in sequence to keep operational units staffed, especially when it comes to specialised skill sets like pilots or submariners that take years to train.
“That being said, a single missed year won’t be devastating, but anything more than that will quickly reach that level.
“The SANDF must provide verifiable assurances that the following year’s intake will not only take place, but be large enough to make up the lack of recruits this year and with changes made to adapt to the higher than usual intake.”
Olivier said over the past few years the SANDF had already been recruiting too few new members as a result of consistent cuts to the defence budget.
“By last year, the annual MSDS intake had shrunk to fewer than 2,000 recruits, whereas the number needed to properly staff the SANDF and prevent people from staying in ranks too long is at least 10,000 a year.”
Olivier added that when the SANDF was able to recruit 10,000 a year, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it experienced a huge improvement in its age-rank profile, with the average age of low-level ranks like private dropping significantly back to healthier levels.
“Too many personnel stay in for too long and end up transitioning to more expensive long-service contracts that, in turn, push up salary costs and result in a vicious cycle of less money available each year.”
Helmoed-Römer Heitman, a military analyst, said there was a surplus of unfit and old soldiers in the army.
He said an entry-level salary averaged R11,000 per month while a colonel’s package, after serving the force for over 25 years, was valued at R1 million a year, not counting state benefits.
“Another issue is the management of the force and the lack of money to retire the old soldiers. All that is left is simply not to recruit.”
Heitman said the current force did not have the resources, troops, aircraft or transport ships should a war in Mozambique spill over SA’s border.
Olivier added that the implications for the SANDF in terms of being able to handle threats, or even more prosaic day-to-day activities, were dire.
“With the budget continually shrinking, an insufficient annual intake of recruits and no change to its mandated force size or function, it’s in a situation where personnel costs are becoming an ever-increasing proportion of the budget and squeezing out both operational funding and capital acquisition funding to replace or repair equipment.”
He said if it continued for too long, the SANDF would reach a point where it was unable to deploy in any significant numbers.
Spokesman for the SANDF Brig-Gen Mafi Mgobhozi said at present, the SANDF utilised Reserve Force members to supplement the employment of the Regular Force and, in particular, when it came to operations.
“The application forms for the 2022 intake are not yet advertised until a decision is made based on the SANDF’s ability to implement the Covid alert levels measures to curb the spread of the pandemic.”
– marizkac@citizen.co.za
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