South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal is slowly strangling the defence force as capital spending squeezes out operational requirements.
Figures released in the latest national budget show the strategic arms
procurement package will consume a staggering 45,8% of the defence budget over the medium term.
Expenditure on the defence force’s ageing and sickly personnel soaks up a further 34,7%, leaving only 19% for operational costs and other capital spending.
So though the defence budget will grow at an average rate of 13% a year, stripping out the arms deal payments shows that the force is dealing with an effective budget cut while facing increasing operational demands from African peacekeeping missions.
”There is a structural crisis building up which at some point is going to blow up in our faces,” Institute for Security Studies director Jakkie Cilliers told the Mail & Guardian.
”The defence force cannot train, it cannot regenerate, it cannot replace more mundane equipment, such as uniforms and troop carriers. There is no money to retrench surplus troops, no money to replace key personnel, no money to fund operations.
”On top of this we now have a commitment to deploy an additional 1 300 troops in peacekeeping operations in Congo. For each one deployed you need two on rotation. This is going to stretch our capacity in terms of the numbers of combat-ready soldiers we can muster, given that so many are old, not fit or not trained.
”We could be severely embarrassed. What happens if there is another Lesotho? Are we going to send the cooks and bottle washers?”
The Department of Defence’s own assessment is just as bleak. Its most recent yearly report sets out key strategic challenges to its capabilities: ”There remains a mismatch between defence funding and the present force design. The latter is
neither affordable nor sustainable and is not harmonised with the strategic environment and ordered defence commitments …
”The department continued to meet all its commitments despite severe
financial restraints. The cost of meeting defence commitments has, however, been high as funds had to be diverted from maintenance towards meeting operating costs, resulting in decreased serviceability levels.”
One example cited in a recent parliamentary briefing was that the defence force did not have funds to maintain the relatively new Rooivalk helicopters it has purchased. Other weapons systems have been mothballed to save money.
And the new arms purchases will increase the pressure on operational budgets. At the same briefing Rear Admiral Kêk Verster said the costs of the new weapons systems could be ascertained only when they arrived. He said the existing budget was unlikely to cover these costs.
The Defence Department report says the decline in serviceability of most of the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) main weapons systems has been aggravated by the loss of key skills and the effects of ill-health. ”This has seriously eroded the SANDF’s conventional capabilities.”
The report says the government has not yet devised a formula for planned retrenchments. ”Consequently funds earmarked for operating were eventually spent on personnel.
”Inadequate remuneration, allowances, benefits and the continued pressure for the scaling down of operational capabilities result in low morale among members as well as a serious loss of operational and functional expertise.”
Funding pressures are so bad that the generals have proposed reducing the army to a mere 23 000 troops, a figure that defence analyst Helmoed Roemer-Heitman dismisses as completely inadequate. ”At those levels you may as well not bother to have a defence force at all. You may as well just have a gendarmerie.”
The parliamentary joint standing committee on defence also rejected the proposal.
Furthermore, general health and HIV/Aids are also affecting force readiness. ”The number of SANDF members unable to comply with prescribed health standards is increasing rapidly, thus reducing the operational capability of the SANDF and draining resources,” the department’s report states.
One defence source, who declined to be named, estimated that only about half of army troops met combat fitness requirements.
Retired major general Len le Roux, head of the defence sector programme for the Institute for Security Studies, says there is no crisis — yet.
”The new defence packages make up for a past gap in replacing equipment, but the defence budget has not expanded to the same extent. You can’t fire the personnel, so there is only one area you can cut — your operational expenditure.
”It is obviously a bad situation. You have a defence force but you can’t do things with it. You cut down on maintenance; you cut down on training, which is bad for morale. Having a soldier sitting around is the worst thing you can do. In retrospect it is clear that buying everything at once was not a good idea, but I think it was done in good faith.”
Things were likely to get worse as the arms acquisition process unfolded before they got better, Le Roux warned. ”All major acquisition projects tend to overrun your cost expectations. That will put further stress on the operational side.”
Evidence of this was contained in the latest defence budget, which moved to double one air force expenditure line ”to finance an incentive scheme to retain skilled personnel needed to service the new aircraft”.
The budget also referred to additional spending being projected for outfitting the first corvette for ammunition, cryptographic equipment and other specialised technical equipment not included in the up-front cost.
The nine-month delay in the delivery of the corvette has also cost the navy money, including the cost of flying the South African crew to Germany. Though the contract makes provision for penalities up to a maximum of 5% of the cost, none has yet been paid. The penalties would go directly to the fiscus, not the defence force.
Exchange rate fluctuations and contractual price escalations have pushed the arms deal from R30-billion in 1998 to R53-billion in the latest official estimate. This does not include the four maritime helicopters that are being purchased.
”I don’t think we can talk about a crisis, but I do think intervention is required,” says Le Roux.
”We need a very transparent and open national debate about defence. We need to reassess where we stand in terms of today’s realities, including the demands of peace missions into Africa, which were not foreseen.
Either we have to find more money, or we have to find other solutions.”
Thandi Modise, chairperson of the joint standing committee on defence, said the defence force could not be expected to ”deliver a miracle every year”.
”During the period of phasing in the new equipment there are massive expenses. There is almost nothing left for the operational side — that affects morale …
International deployment [on peacekeeping missions] is still largely under-funded. There is also no designated fund for transformation, for achieving representivity.
”There is no need for hysteria, but we do need to sit down and look at funding and perhaps we should re-look at force design.”