COSATU demands urgent investigations into further allegations of procurement corruption in the SANDF

31 July 2023

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) demands urgent investigations and decisive action on further allegations of procurement corruption in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to the value of hundreds of millions of Rands worth of personal protective equipment (PPEs) and related materials. This follows on previous reports of similar procurement corruption in the SANDF in 2021.

This is a seemingly never-ending depressing cycle where individuals in the state and the private sector treat an already under resourced and over stretched state as their personal slush funds with little impunity or shame. The law enforcement organs need to account for what exactly are they doing about this sorry state of affairs. If needs be, then institutions riddled with corruption must be placed under administration until workers can be assured that their hard earned taxes are safe in the hands of the state, and that the public services that they depend upon and the state is constitutionally obliged to provide can be delivered.

The SANDF is limping due to chronic financial constraints. Its personnel members are woefully underpaid, live in appalling conditions that threaten their lives and security. The nation time and again depends upon a well resourced, highly trained and efficient SANDF to support the South African Police Service when called upon to do so, to assist with disaster management, secure our borders and help ensure peace in various conflict zones in the continent. The least government can do is to manage the budgets allocated to the SANDF and ensure that they go towards its personnel and not to repugnant tenderpreneurs.

Issued by Matthew Parks, Acting National Spokesperson & Parliamentary Coordinator, COSATU, 31 July 2023