The Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans Chairperson, Dakota Legoete, has appealed to the Defence Force to deal decisively with malfeasance and corruption.
This comes after the Auditor-General’s office, the Special Investigative Unit and the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation briefed the committee on malfeasance and corruption in the department and its entities.
“We are going to isolate wrong elements in the system; that work must not wait for the next portfolio committee or administration. We cannot allow criminals to take over our national security, or it will collapse.
“This committee will not allow anarchy and plundering of military resources to continue. Someone must take responsibility; we cannot kill the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) – our only defence mechanism to vulnerability,” Legoete said on Thursday.
He made these remarks during a briefing from the Department of Defence on the quarterly expenditure and the challenges it has encountered in executing its mandate.
While the committee appreciates the good work that is being done in the force, it emphasised removing those who fail to execute their duties with integrity.
“The challenges we are facing as the defence today are not only due to underfunding. There is a general ill-discipline in the Defence Force, which is responsible for the decline of the national Defence Force. We need to isolate the bad elements, as they are compromising the national security of our country,” the Chairperson said.
Legoete stressed that defending South Africans was one of the three functions of a credible state, otherwise it would have no claim to legitimacy.
As part of efforts to deal with the challenges in the force, the committee requested monthly reports on old corruption cases that have been difficult to finalise.
The Deputy Minister of Police, Dr Polly Boshielo, said the challenge was that the military police took a long time to refer to cases and then army officers refused to cooperate with them.
Legoete also asked for an interim report to be prepared for the President on all the pending corruption cases.
“In the interim, the Military Council commanders should be kept abreast of all these corruption cases so that they are aware of the threat South Africa faces,” he said. -SAnews.gov.za
