Members of the Army Command Council, the Head of Communication, Mr Siphiwe Dlamini, Director

Defence Corporate Communication, Brig Gen Xolani Mabanga, Generals, Officers, Warrant Officers,
Non-commissioned Officers, Soldiers, Members of the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen
We are delighted as the South African Army to host you this morning in the City of Tshwane, at this
Media Breakfast where we reaffirm our commitment as an accountable army that reports back to
the people of South Africa on its mandate, successes, challenges and developments.
I have instructed my staff to convene this gathering so that the people of South Africa can have an
opportunity, which is their constitutional right, to be appraised on issues that their army is and has
been involved in. This sharing of information with South Africans relies heavily on the ability of the
media, our guests today, to ask probing questions to get answersthat would inform our people on
aspects that the military is mandated to fulfil. Ladies and gentlemen from the media, our
appreciation goes towards the work that you do to educate and inform our people.
I have prepared a few points to discuss with you today; points which have to do with the task the
South African Army has to carry out in order to fully achieve its mandate.
I will speak to issues pertaining to force rejuvenation, the challenge of outdated equipment, efforts
to help keep our prime mission equipment in working condition, provision of combat-ready forces to
deploy internally on border safeguarding duties and continental missions in support of peace and
security and the SA Armys support to other government institutions.
Firstly, as part of our continuing Military Skills Development System force rejuvenation effort, we
have injected new life into the SA Army with the recruitment and enlistment of over 1500 young
men and women this year, the majority of whom basic military training in May and are currently
undergoing corps specific training at bases across the country.
Still on the issue of recruitment, the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans gave the SA Army a
directive during her Budget Vote in Parliament that we must robustly continue tapping into underrepresented communities and bring in capable young men and women from this sector of our
society to serve in our military. The Minister made it known that through the governments nonracial policies, extra efforts have to be made to ensure that as we redress the imbalances of our
painful past, we must guard against falling into an undesirable situation where our military gets
disproportionally dominated by one race group. I, therefore, urge you as members of the media to
help mobilise our youth from under-represented communities to respond to this call.
Secondly, we have been grappling with the challenge of outdated equipment and have put measures
in place to address this issue. We continue to make good progress on acquisition of state-of-the-art
equipment for the landward forces to replace the aging equipment that at times hampers our
operational effectiveness and hinders the optimal attainment of our objectives.
The Air Defence Artillery Formation took delivery of the Starstreak Very Short Range Air Defence
Missile System from our Defence Industry late last year to complement the 23mm and the 35 mm
ground-based Anti-aircraft guns, providing the SA Army with a highly effective static ground-based
air defence capability to be employed as a defensive asset for the SA Army critical installations.

This corps will also take delivery of an upgraded battery fire control post, known as the Thutlwa, that
provides air defence assets with a 120km radius radar coverage. The South African Air Defence
Artillery Formation and the South African Infantry Formation with its Badger infantry fighting
vehicle, are both undergoing extensive equipment renewal that the Defence Review recommended
as one of the identified milestones that needs to be addressed.
Of course, there are other equipment renewal projects we are involved in, and greater detail will be
provided on request.
You are aware that the Defence Review 2014 has been adopted and reviewed by the National
Assembly, and the department will now proceed with full implementation.
As the SA Army we have continued with revamping our resources and dealing with equipment
renewal even with the limited scope that our budget permits. We are now hoping that since the
Defence Review 2014 has been passed, it will allow us to bid for more resources and speed up our
response to aspects that require additional attention.
We have also made inroads on repairing and improving some of our facilities that have been in
disrepair to ensure the comfort and safety of our soldiers by fast-tracking renovations on a number
of sites across the country. A total of 22 projects in conjunction with the Department of Public Works
have been completed. The projects involve renovations of buildings, maintenance of mechanical and
electrical infrastructure and the erecting of security installations.
We are, however, even under the current situation of austere measures, meeting our objectives of
training and providing combat-ready forces that are proudly representing our peace-keeping, peacebuilding and peace-enforcement obligations across the continent.
The third issue speaks of the now advanced stage of maintaining and bringing to life some of our
equipment that needed urgent attention.
Members of the Cuban Defence Force are in South Africa, as part of a partnership and bi-lateral
military-to-military agreement to bring expertise and capacity to our shores and share ideas with our
technical services personnel that would see efforts injected into the repair and maintenance of our
fleet of aging vehicles.
This intervention adds to our efforts to maintain the equipment at our disposal at optimal
operational standards that ensures that our soldiers are able to meet their operational objectives,
thus supporting our mandate.
This ongoing execution of Project THUSANO meant to maintain and repair our operational vehicles is
beginning to yield results that would save the country millions of rands, that would have otherwise
been spent procuring external service providers to maintain our vehicles. What it also brings with it
is the skills capital that our technical service personnel gains from their Cuban counterparts.
Fourth and at the apex of our mandate is the SA Armys provision of combat-ready forces for the
SANDF to deploy on continental missions in support of peace and security as well as ensuring that
our borders are secured, curbing the influx of illicit goods and undocumented persons into our
country.
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The SA Army has to that end trained and provided a total of 2213 members who are currently
deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Darfur Region in Sudan as part of United
Nations and African Union mandated missions. The South AfricanArmy continues to support these
missions with personnel during rotation intervals. 121 South African Infantry Battalion has now
taken over from 5 South African Infantry Battalion in the DRC as part of the United Nations Force
Intervention Brigade that is credited with neutralising M23 and continues being a stabilising force in
the vast DRC.
Our training mission in the DRC Mission THEBE - a mission in support of the integration training of
the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), has to date trained and handed
over 9000 recruits and soldiers for utilisation by the DRC.
We continue delivering on our mandate and more and more responsibilities are sent in our way.
Our country is at the forefront of the establishment of the African Capacity for Immediate Response
to Crises (ACIRC) to deal with security challenges on the continent, and those of you who managed
to witness our ACIRC force preparation exercise; Exercise SEBOKA, would have seen the amount of
work already put into operationalising our pledged force towards this initiative.
Last years exercise went well, beyond expectations, and the Minister of Defence and Military
Veterans also indicated during her budget vote that the SANDFs pledged force will reach an interim
operational capacity by 30 September 2015, with full operational capacity by 30 November this year.
As custodians of force preparation and provision, the SA Army is ready to ensure that this force
eventually attains full operational capacity.
As you all know, ACIRC is a multi-national initiative of the African Union, and volunteering nations
have started with preparations to build this capacity until such time that the African Standby Force is
confirmed and in place.
Lastly, following the attacks on foreign nationals, the SA Army provided forces to support the South
African Police Service and other state agencies in stabilising the situation around hotspots in our
country. As part of Operation FIELA, our soldiers in support of the South African Police Service
helped apprehend a number of known criminals and undocumented persons. The majority of those
arrested were South Africans with foreign nationals being a minority. The focus here was to arrest
the wide-spread criminality that people were willing to commit, masquerading as protestations
against the presence of foreign nationals in our communities.
Operation FIELA, a joint operation aimed at restoring stability in our communities and bringing to
account the criminals involved during the attacks on foreign nationals has yielded positive results.
The SA Army, as part of the SANDF, continues working closely with and supporting other state
departments on many fronts.
Most of you are familiar with the Youth Leadership Development Programme (YLDP), formerly the
National Youth Service or NYS which is a partnership between our department and the Department
of Rural Development and Land Reform. This is a programme whose objectives are to improve the
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employability of our unemployed youth by empowering them with entrepreneurship skills and other
qualities. Since 2012 we have conducted two programmes per year, each able to cater for 1200
young men and women.
During this programme spearheaded and presented by the SA Army, young men and women are
taught the importance of personal discipline, ethical conduct, morality, community service, civic
education and the importance of patriotism.
The programme also includes water orientation and physical training. Since its inception in 2012, the
SA Army as a partner and trainer in the Youth Leadership Development Programme, has to date
trained over 6000 people.
We are also part of another similar project involving the Department of Social Development.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, these were some of the burning issues that I wished to discuss
with you. The Senior Command Cadre of the SA Army and I will discuss other issues that were not
addressed during the briefing that you might have questions about. Feel free to engage with us and
pose your questions so that you can have a clearer understanding on the issues at play when you
report to your audiences and readership.
I thank you.