Defence Committee members slam DoD Annual Performance Plan as “same old lie”

South Africa’s Department of Defence (DoD) has unveiled its Strategic Plan for 2025–2030 and its Annual Performance Plan (APP) for 2025/26, touting promises of transformation and strategic readiness. However, politicians from across the political spectrum have responded with a list of searing criticisms.

Critics, most notably Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Carl Niehaus and Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Chris Hattingh, have accused SANDF leadership and DoD officials of being out of touch, stuck in bureaucratic inertia, and incapable of initiating the reforms desperately needed to rescue the defence force from its downward spiral.

Tabled by Defence Minister Angie Motshekga and supported by the Acting Secretary for Defence Dr Thobekile Gamede and SANDF Chief General Rudzani Maphwanya, the plans claim to map a course toward a more agile and mission-ready defence force. But lawmakers say the plans are a thin rehash of previously failed documents, offering little more than buzzwords in place of real change.

Niehaus delivered a cutting assessment during parliamentary debate, describing the plan as yet another uninspired document lacking any evidence of fresh thinking. “We want to continue to have the kind of defence force that was inherited even before 1994 and we want to do it with the same kind of equipment we had then,” he said. “You’re not going to get the funds for it, and you are not able to implement a programme of action that is deserving of the needs and the demands for the SANDF today.”

Further, Niehaus accused the leadership of the SANDF of being stuck in a time warp, determined to replicate past models of defence without acknowledging present fiscal and strategic constraints. “This document is not part of a programme of modernisation. It is not part of new thinking about what the SANDF should be,” he added.

His remarks speak to a wider concern shared by stakeholders and analysts alike: that SANDF leadership, far from being a driver of change, has become an obstacle to it.

The data in the documents support Niehaus’s alarm. According to the APP, SANDF capabilities are underfunded by huge margins: air defence operations are 51.43% unfunded, maritime capabilities fall short by 61.71%, and landward operations are currently underfunded by 52%. Maintenance is delayed, critical equipment lies dormant, and the average overall funding falls 47.17% below what is required.

Hattingh pointed to a string of broken promises and policy delays as emblematic of a leadership culture that is reactive, not visionary. “Despite years of policy promises and planning documents, South Africa remains without a funded, implemented, or updated defence policy,” he stated.

Hattingh highlighted the chaotic handling of the 2015 Defence Review, once hailed as the blueprint for rebuilding the SANDF. “Since 2022, we’ve had a series of shifting deadlines. By 2025, there’s still no submission to Cabinet, no policy direction, and no sense of urgency.”

As Hattingh warned, “Leadership is absent, innovation is non-existent, and a bloated personnel structure consumes the bulk of an already shrinking budget.”

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