Saps asks broke SANDF to help shelter 10,000 of its new recruits

The South African Police Service (Saps) is pulling out all the stops to train a record 10,000 new recruits.

However, it has too many heads and not enough beds at its 17 training facilities.

To this end, more than 2,900 recruits have been placed at 3 South African Infantry Battalion in Kimberley, where facilities need “urgent” attention, according to the general officer commanding defence works formation, Major-General Joseph Ledwaba.

He has told regional works unit Northern Cape Officer Commanding Colonel Odwa Mdleleni that the regional works unit is “to utilise all equipment and processes at their disposal to repair the facilities where needed as a matter of urgency”, according to the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) Facebook page.

The SANDF was crippled by budgetary cuts this year, said defence expert Darren Olivier, and the mismatch between budget and mandate had become critical, with the SANDF buckling under the strain and struggling to maintain key capabilities.

“The SANDF’s budget has steadily declined in real terms since the ’90s, with particularly sharp and severe cuts over the past five years,” he said.

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“Whereas defence spending was once at around 1.5% of [gross domestic product] GDP and the 2015 defence review required spending to increase to 1.8% of GDP temporarily to restore lost capabilities, it’s now just 0.76% of GDP.”

Olivier said there was a R26.4 billion shortfall in the SANDF’s annual budget between the R49 billion it received, and the R75.5 billion it actually needed to sustain its current force structure and set of mandated missions.

Retired Major-General Chris Botha, who was in charge of the Saps research and curriculum development, said Saps was looking to train more recruits than they had capacity for.

“Unfortunately, I do not know if there are any financial arrangements between the Saps and SANDF for fixing up the place.”

He said prior to the police recruitments, there had been complaints about the police recruits at the defence force base in Kimberley.

However, some of the police colleges had offered “pots and pans and things like that”.

“I’ve also been told the training and human resources division of the police went there to see what they do.”

Police spokesperson Colonel Athlenda Mathe said Saps was liaising closely with the SANDF to ensure training took place in a conducive environment.

“Due to the large number of students, the Saps has a contractual agreement to utilise SANDF facilities to accommodate more than 2,900 Saps basic police learning development training programme trainees.

Meanwhile, defence expert Helmoed-Romer Heitman said, depending on who pays for what, if the SANDF had to cover the costs of fixing the Kimberley base “as a matter of urgency”, it was unacceptable.

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“The police have a vastly larger budget and should meet their own costs – and pay the defence force for the use of the facilities.

“The defence force is far too accommodating towards other departments and really needs to learn to say no to such things and to unfunded missions.”

He also said failing to say no to the military facility option would have a negative impact on training and maintenance of equipment, “the only two areas where the defence force can cut back, albeit to its detriment and putting troops at risk”.

“I would have expected the minister and the chief to put their foot down – even worse if the defence force also had to cover payment to the police recruits. Past time the police stood on its own feet.”