Navy chief slams unpatriotic officials, warns defence cuts threaten South Africa’s security
Chief of the South African Navy, Vice Admiral Monde Lobese handing over long service medals to deserving members of the South African Navy.
Image: File
Chief of the South African Navy, Vice Admiral Monde Lobese, has issued a stark warning that decisions to drastically reduce the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) workforce is effectively asking the defence force to implement its own version of what KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi once revealed before the Madlanga Commission about the closure of the Political Killings Task Team.
“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,” Lobese said while addressing the Chief of the Navy's Prestige Charity Ball at St George's Hotel in Tshwane.
Lobese made the remarks during his Prestige Address, in which he painted a grim picture of a Navy hamstrung by years of underfunding, dwindling resources, and what he described as “an unpatriotic, sellout posture” towards national defence.
“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’ are not busy with a mission to privatise the SA Navy and the SANDF,” he said.
The vice admiral accused decision-makers of treating the defence force’s planning and performance reviews as “a mind game,” saying the Defence Department is required to produce detailed plans that will never be resourced.
“We are required to produce Annual Performance Plans and Defence Reviews one after another, and what saddens me is knowing very well that this requirement is just a mind game as these will not be resourced,” Lobese said.
He warned that the Navy’s “prolonged absence at sea” due to the non-availability of ships and submarines posed a serious national risk, leaving South Africa’s waters vulnerable to drug cartels, human traffickers and illegal traders.
“Our prolonged absence at sea due to non-availability of Ships and Submarines all because of under resourcing of our Navy should concern you as fellow patriots and South Africans,” he said.
Lobese went further, questioning whether those responsible for cutting the Defence budget “may be directly or indirectly influenced” by criminal networks benefiting from weakened maritime surveillance.
“I often find myself questioning whether those responsible for making significant decisions, particularly regarding the funding of our Defence Force, may be directly or indirectly influenced by these drug cartels, illegal traders, maritime criminals or human traffickers,” he said.
Reflecting on his own years in exile, Lobese said the contrast between the resourced liberation armies of the past and today’s underfunded defence force was “painful to watch.”
“When I was a young 17-year-old freedom fighter in the bushes of Angola, we never ran short of uniform, weapons and ammunition,” he said.
The Navy chief called for urgent political will to restore funding for the SANDF, arguing that national security was being “outsourced to fate.” He warned that continued cuts would undermine South Africa’s sovereignty, deterrence capability and its credibility among allies.
Lobese concluded his address by urging South Africans to “advocate for a stronger, well-funded defence force,” warning that “without a Navy at sea, we are at the mercy of those who wish us harm.”
jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za
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