Cape Town - Underfunding has resulted in the South African Navy being unable to do repairs and maintenance to their combat vessels and achieving its target of hours at sea for the 2023/2024 financial year.
The situation was dire and has severely compromised the Navy’s ability to “fight and win” at sea.
This is according to the portfolio committee on Security and Justice who conducted its first oversight visit in the 7th Parliament to the SA Naval base in Simon’s Town earlier this month.
The oversight revealed that years of underfunding has resulted in the scheduled upkeep, maintenance and repair of vessels not taking place as required. The committee was told that South Africa has 3 924 kilometres of maritime borders, with 96% of South Africa’s imports and exports moving by sea.
The Navy has since indicated that its “Operation Corona” maritime coastal patrols are a deterrent for illegal, unregulated and uncontrolled fishing, but that the monetary value of these forms of fishing exceeds that of legal fishing.
The committee noted that the Navy is working with other departments to put a stop to this criminality such as the illegal fish trade and that it did not achieve its target of hours at sea for the 2023/2024 financial year due to prolonged maintenance and repairs to its vessels. They added this is mainly due to capacity constraints at Armscor dockyard, which is further compounded by procurement challenges. They have since urged the Navy to establish a better working relationship between itself and Armscor.
Committee Chairperson, Jane Mananiso said they wanted to familiarise themselves with the Navy’s services and operations and to engage on its 2023/24 annual performance report and 2024/25 performance indicators.
“We are a new committee. We wanted to hear first-hand the challenges that they have and how we can assist from our side,” she said.
Mananiso said the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is the backbone in efforts to secure South Africa from external threats.
“In the value chain of the security cluster, the SANDF assists with maritime safety, border patrol, and air and land space monitoring, among other valuable functions,” she added.
“The naval base was chosen for the committee to receive a comprehensive introduction to the work of the Navy and its programmes, staffing, challenges, infrastructure, maintenance of its assets and how the budgetary constraints impact on operations,” she elaborated.
Minister of Defence, Angie Motshekga was approached for engagement on whether the meeting (oversight visit) would be closed to the public and that the physical oversight and walkabout would be open to all.
Mananiso said the committee further heard that the Navy was working hard to provide combat-ready vessels and platforms for the defence of the country, as well as to satisfy its international commitments.
“It is further committed to eradicating all acts of maritime criminality within South Africa’s domain and surrounding waters,” she said.
She said the committee further heard that day-to-day maintenance and emergency repairs were devolved from Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to the Department of Defence.
Mananiso also requested information about transformation relating to women, disability and LGBTQIA+ and the committee was assured that programmes exist within the Navy to ensure inclusion and main streaming.
While boarding the SA Drakensberg and visiting the dry dock and the maintenance workshop she said much work had to be done in, increasing the budget for repairs and resources
“We have seen the picture and shows the capabilities.
“We encouraged them for future plans for some services to be digitalised in the workshop. This is one of the spaces where it really shows you must find a way to deal with procurement matters,” said Mananiso.
“The committee will forever advocate for more budget. We have emphasised, too, that they need to better prioritise.
“They have committed to meet the targets where they underachieved. We are committed to work with them.
“We requested a detailed report on procurement and supply chain matters so we can ascertain if everything is above board or if consequence management should be meted out.
‘We are moving in the right direction, irrespective of the challenges,” Mananiso said.
A year ago, the SA Navy was to start its project to replace its combat support vessel, SAS Drakenberg which is close to 40 years old.
This week, SA Navy communications Petty Officer Stacey Jonas told Weekend Argus they were waiting on feedback from their national office on the latest developments on the vessel being replaced.
SA Navy Chief, Vice Admiral Monde Lobese, a year ago said they would need at least another 12 ships and to replace the SAS Drakensberg with a new vessel according to a report via the Defence Web news
They said the SAS Drakensberg was used to patrol for pirates in the Mozambique Channel as part of Operation Copper and in 2012 it assisted European warships catch seven Somali pirates in the Channel.