Motshekga guns for Navy Chief over underfunding 'outburst'

CHIEF of the South African Navy, Vice Admiral Monde Lobese has ruffled Defence and Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga’s feathers with his remarks lamenting the funding of the country’s defence force.

Lobese also questioned whether those making funding decisions were working with maritime criminals to “undermine the nation and compromise its sovereignty”. 

Speaking during a gala dinner at the weekend, Lobese said: “The unpatriotic, and what appears to be a sellout posture of defunding the SA Navy and SANDF in general, leaves me with a question of whether the people behind, what I would like to call “nonsense”; if they are not busy with a mission to privatise the SA Navy and the SANDF, seeing that the private security is a lucrative business in our country, and it is replacing the state security machinery…

“To add salt to this wound, attempts have been made by certain government departments to bring a foreign company to come 12 patrol our waters. As the Navy we rejected this sellout and unpatriotic decision. Maritime security narrative is about protecting our way of life.  Our oceans define who we are, it feeds our people, sustains our economy, and connects us to other Nations through the Indian and Atlantic Oceans,” Lobese said. 

“For our Cabinet to approve the reduction of the SANDF work force or strength is actually nothing far from telling us [to] implement a defence version of what General Mkhwanazi has disclosed in the Madlanga Commission with regard to the closure of the Political Killing Task Team.”

In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, the department distanced itself from Lobese’s views, saying they did not reflect its official position.

“The Minister regards these remarks not only as inappropriate, disingenuous and unfortunate on a matter he is fully aware that is receiving attention at all levels, starting from within the department to Parliament. The Minister will be taking appropriate steps to deal with this unfortunate outburst, worst still from a senior person at his level.” 

Stellenbosch University emeritus Military Sciences professor Francois Vreÿ said Lobese was canvassing for the resources to be able to have some kind of naval capacity to at least play the minimal role.

“If something goes wrong at sea it points towards that the navy should have been there. Typical of politicians they’ll point fingers at the chief of the Navy if the Navy did not step up to the plate. Maybe it’s time somebody tells the political leadership in defence they should start doing their work. It’s not the first time the chief of the navy made a statement about the Navy.” 

He said ‘sea blind’ politicians were adding to the challenges faced by the Navy. 

“If you are on the receiving end of constant budget cuts, your vessels can’t run through their maintenance cycles. After that you run into trade offs where you try to keep one vessel operational and the other vessels are in maintenance. This boils down to how important do you deem your oceans and whether your politicians play along in the game because they understand the importance of the maritime domain or you’ve got sea blind politicians and the only ones who can see the light is the Navy. If you have sea blind politicians the navy suffers." 

DA MP, Chris Hattingh said while they understood Lobese's frustration, they welcomed the minister's decision to act against him. 

He said Lobese’s latest comments undermined the principle of civilian oversight of the military.

"At the same time, many of the facts Admiral Lobese mentioned reflect concerns that Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and the Joint Standing Committee on Defence have raised for years. Parliament has repeatedly warned the Minister of Defence that ongoing underfunding threatens South Africa’s ability to protect its borders, weakens economic growth, and undermines the defence industry. Defence spending has dropped from over 2% of GDP in 1996 to around 0.7% today. We have made these points again and again, often in meetings where senior SANDF officials and the minister were present.”

Cape Times