Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula says the national defence force deployed more than 8 000 personnel to the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year.<\/p>\n
The Minister said this when she tabled the department\u2019s budget vote during a mini plenary of the National Assembly on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
She said the SA National Defence Force has been progressively asked to do more for less for several years now.<\/p>\n
The past year, however, was unprecedented. It was, however, a challenge the members who make up this proud national asset, accepted and met with enthusiasm, Mapisa-Nqakula said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were tasked to provide the largest deployment since our democracy in support of the State of National Disaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only did we focus on ensuring that citizens adhered to social distancing and the wearing of masks, but we also delivered in many other ways that were unseen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe SANDF deployed 8 119 personnel, made up of members of the regular force, reserve force and auxiliary services, in support of other government departments to mitigate and combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe SANDF conducted 12452 road blocks, 7800 vehicle-check-points and 35000 patrols,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mapisa-Nqakula said the department also responded urgently where needed, providing drinking water and building bridges in remote areas.<\/p>\n
Medical professionals were also deployed to areas that were buckling under the strain of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cNotwithstanding this, the department has suffered its own challenges with COVID-19. We have recorded a number of COVID-19 positive cases and fatalities during this pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Minister said it was important to recognise the enormous contribution of the Cuban medical team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey conducted just over 79 298 total procedures, significantly improving our ability to save the lives of our members in uniform.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to support the Department of Health in the roll-out of the vaccine program. We have availed our air transport and airport facilities to assist in this endeavour,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Constrained fiscus<\/strong><\/p>\n Mapisa-Nqakula said, meanwhile, that the department\u2019s budget vote was delivered under a severely constrained fiscus.<\/p>\n \u201cNonetheless, we must inform this house of the negative impact our declining allocation has had and will continue to have on the Department of Defence in general – our military capabilities in particular and our ability to meet our operational responsibilities assigned to us as well as our international obligations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reduction of over R15 billion over the MTEF has placed us in a very difficult position. Our capital budget has effectively been reduced to a trickle and the operating budget is under extreme pressure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She said that under these conditions, the department was finding it very difficult to improve the serviceability of prime mission equipment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhilst we are fully aware of the fiscal challenges that South Africa has, the reduction to our allocation has a devastating impact, not only on the Defence Force, but also our defence industry and defence related industry and the many SMME\u2019s in the supply chain.\u201d \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula says the national defence force deployed more than 8 000 personnel to the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year. The Minister said this when she tabled the department\u2019s budget vote during a mini plenary of the National Assembly on Tuesday. She said the SA National Defence Force has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-189352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}