Soon after he came to office in 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to recruit R1.2-trillion in foreign direct investment to SA to help solve inequality, poverty and unemployment — the systemic threats to the country’s stability. SA’s private sector joined in.
The annual investment conferences, which were well choreographed at the Sandton Convention Centre until the interruption of Covid-19, attracted billions of rand in pledges in new and sustaining capital investments. Mostly these sessions — one of which was attended by Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma — were stage-managed, and had very little interaction.
They have not featured much in the agenda of the new government of national unity, though SA’s existential threats — the three sisters who have lately been joined by the cost-of-living crisis — still persist.
Still, privately at cocktail parties, away from scripted sessions, diplomats and business people — local and foreigners — were sending smoke signals about their emerging concerns. As well as being worried about power outages and the failing logistics system, they were worried by threats to SA’s sovereignty.
To be clear, SA faced no immediate and clear threat from any of its direct neighbours. To a major extent, this still applies. However, in the medium to long term the scenario changes to a worrying outlook. Inequality, poverty and unemployment are playing themselves out daily on the streets and in businesses and households through service delivery protests, robberies, violent crimes and extortion schemes targeting the rich, businesses and crucial economic infrastructure.
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Pockets of the country have become zones of lawlessness. The Western Cape, which is run by the DA, is facing a losing war against gangs. For years it called on the ANC-run national government to deploy the army to reinforce the police. This has not happened.
Yet in ANC-run provinces troops have been deployed to support the police in crime fighting. In July 2021, after the imprisonment of Jacob Zuma for ignoring a Constitutional Court subpoena, Ramaphosa deployed the army to KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng to help quell the mayhem that engulfed the two provinces.
During the Covid-19 pandemic Ramaphosa deployed the army to the streets to help police enforce the restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the disease. They did not cover themselves in glory; during the first week the troops were caught on citizens’ cameras beating a man (who subsequently died from his injuries) for drinking alcohol on his own premises.
A year ago, when Eskom’s power stations were vandalised, Ramaphosa decided to deploy the army to help safeguard Eskom’s beleaguered infrastructure. These are but a few examples of how the last line of defence has become the first line of defence.
It is too soon to tell whether the army, the primary mandate of which is defending our borders and territorial integrity, is making any significant difference inside the borders of the country. What is clear is that it is not covering itself in glory outside SA’s borders — across the continent — and is woefully ill-prepared for an external enemy.
A common joke in military circles is that the SA National Defence Force would be routed even by neighbouring Botswana without US support.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, Paul Kagame’s proxy M23 rebels are sending SA troops home in body bags almost monthly. The troops, who are sitting ducks, have no air cover. As with most services, the armed forces — navy, air and ground forces — have suffered from years of austerity.
In the late 1990s, Nelson Mandela agreed to proceed with the multibillion-rand procurement of military hardware. This strategic procurement, colloquially called the arms deal, focused on strengthening two areas of the armed forces: the navy and the air force. Troops, military equipment for ground forces and living conditions were not prioritised. Even before its conclusion the deal was mired in corruption. Only two people have gone to jail for short terms for this. The third accused South African, Zuma, has yet to have his day in court.
This controversy partly explains two other factors: as a consequence of the stench of corruption, post-Mandela administrations have stayed away from retooling the army; and that is why it has been so easy for the austerity axe to fall on the defence budget.
The political heads of the department have hardly helped. However, it is getting harder to sustain this indifference. In 2013 the government commissioned a review of SA’s defence capability. The findings, which were couched in euphemistic terms in a 2015 report, confirmed the sorry state of defence capacity.
The cuts and diversions have continued. The army’s budget was diverted to other pressing causes including growing social protection and fee-free higher education. The outcome of these cuts and diversions has been poor working conditions and lack of maintenance.
Alongside these self-inflicted wounds, two state-owned manufacturers, Armscor and Denel, have lost most of their skilled personnel, along with intellectual property, over the years. Most of these skills went to the Arab world.
SA is a strategically important country to the West and the East. It serves as a gateway to the rest of the continent, and its sea routes are important to global trade. This imperative is not lost on governments and investors from the Global South and the West. Accordingly, their concerns about SA’s sovereignty should be taken as seriously as South Africans’ anxieties about their safety and security at their homes and businesses.
A rare opportunity to help Ramaphosa address these concerns has presented itself. The appointment of his ally, Angie Motshekga, as defence minister, and retired army general Bantu Holomisa as her deputy, gives the president a trusted voice in his ear and expert advice from a respected soldier.
• Dludlu, a former editor of The Sowetan, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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