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Speaker 1: This report in City Press, which appears online only these

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Speaker 1: days via the News twenty four website. This report yesterday

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Speaker 1: nearly four hundred VIP guests invited to Lieutenant General Lawrence

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Speaker 1: and Barta's annual golf fundraiser with two million rand accommodation

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Speaker 1: costs and a five hundred guest prize giving dinner. Counter

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Speaker 1: Intelligence officers must sweep venues for eves, dropping streets leading

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Speaker 1: to the golf course gets special repairs, while surrounding areas

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Speaker 1: remain pothole ridden, and the arrangements can continue. Just Ricarda

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Speaker 1: to Scherer is a defense analyst joining us on the

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Speaker 1: line now from Pretoria. RICARDA, good afternoon, afternoon.

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Speaker 2: How are you?

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Speaker 1: I am annoyed to say the least our defense force

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Speaker 1: is not in great shape. The troops underpaid, overworked, under trained,

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Speaker 1: under resourced. Is there anything positive to be said about

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Speaker 1: spending a minimum of two million Rand and probably quite

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Speaker 1: a lot more than that on a charity golf day

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Speaker 1: under the army under the army's banner.

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Speaker 2: So these charity golf days are unfortunately nothing new. And

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Speaker 2: I remember last year around the time of the Battle

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Speaker 2: of Goma, in which the fourteenth of that consuldiers were

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Speaker 2: killed in fighting with them twenty three. Over that weekend,

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Speaker 2: the Air Force had a golf day, and the Chief

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Speaker 2: of the Army in late a few months after while

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Speaker 2: troops are still being confined to their quarters in Goma,

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Speaker 2: and he also held the golf day, which I was

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Speaker 2: the previous iteration of this current one. And I remember

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Speaker 2: seeing a letter that was circulated looking for sponsorships in

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Speaker 2: order to pay for those gift bags for the four

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Speaker 2: hundred attendees last year. And among the many things they

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Speaker 2: were open to put in each of the gift bags

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Speaker 2: was a smart a tactical smart watch, a golf shirt,

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Speaker 2: a cap, and an umbrella. And this is all part

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Speaker 2: of a larger, frankly, an honorable culture that has that

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Speaker 2: has grown amongst the senior officers of the Defense Force

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Speaker 2: and is part of the wider problems they face. And

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Speaker 2: we've got this institution that, as you said, the rank

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Speaker 2: and file are overworked, underpaid, and getting older every day,

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Speaker 2: but the leadership of the institution is only focused on

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Speaker 2: having a good time. And it's hard to argue for

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Speaker 2: the institute to get more funding and to become properly

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Speaker 2: equipped when the leadership don't seem interested in making that

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Speaker 2: a reality.

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Speaker 1: Because I wanted to check with somebody who follows the sector,

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Speaker 1: the sector as a profession, that maybe I was missing,

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Speaker 1: so that there's a degree of camaraderie which is established

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Speaker 1: that raises funds for charitable causes. I don't know. I

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Speaker 1: was looking to find out whether there is anything positive

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Speaker 1: to be said about this kind of extravaganza at all.

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Speaker 2: No, this is this is part of the problem with

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Speaker 2: the Defense Force and particularly its leadership, is I mean,

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Speaker 2: and this is you know when you see the rumor

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Speaker 2: going around that we have four hundred generals, which we

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Speaker 2: do not. But part of the reason why people are

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Speaker 2: angry about that, and the same reason why people are

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Speaker 2: upset with this, is that it seems in the Defense Force,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what is going on with the institute

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Speaker 2: or how low the funding gets, the top rank structures,

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Speaker 2: the reggadier generals and up just seem to be having

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Speaker 2: a great time. I mean, I know at the Army

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Speaker 2: College or the War College previously the Saint George's Hotel,

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Speaker 2: they roll out the red carpet when a brigadier comes

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Speaker 2: to visit the campus, and it's just this weird culture

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Speaker 2: of where culture where the leadership are treated like royalty

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Speaker 2: and they don't seem to be delivering on anything. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we see longer slogans come out every year from the

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Speaker 2: Army chief. He's even written a book called Planning Is Everything,

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Speaker 2: and he's one of the contenders to be the next

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Speaker 2: Chief of the Army. But at the same time, this

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Speaker 2: is an individual who, as has been alleged by some

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Speaker 2: of my sources in the Army, that has a taster

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Speaker 2: to taste his food and has used the Pathfinder Unit

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Speaker 2: within the Parachute Regiment as personal bodyguards. And I think

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Speaker 2: it's a culture of overindulgence that is unbecoming of a

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Speaker 2: of a general officer.

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Speaker 1: There's something else that really struck me in the Erica

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Speaker 1: Gibson's story about it on City Press. An entire fifteen

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Speaker 1: page operational instruction for the golf Day is just a

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Speaker 1: fraction shorter than the Middle Tree's recent outline of its

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Speaker 1: entire nationwide deployment in support of police in areas where

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Speaker 1: gang violence and zama zama plagues community plague communities. So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, again, if that's accurate, then Erica

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Speaker 1: tends to be accurate with these things, then it just

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Speaker 1: shows priorities that are so skewed, so completely out of

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Speaker 1: touch with what we want to need from a defense force.

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Speaker 1: If we're going to have one.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and it's it's not isolated at the higher rankles.

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Speaker 2: It's become a bit of the norm. I mean. Before

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Speaker 2: Parliament closed in December, in the one of the final sessions,

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Speaker 2: the Joint Standing Committee received a presentation from Chief of

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Speaker 2: Joint Ops about the deployment of the DRC that has

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Speaker 2: now been canceled, but at that time they were rotating

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Speaker 2: the next bunch of troops, and that presentation was six

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Speaker 2: slides and the committee vocal with the Chief of Joint

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Speaker 2: Ops about what was going on and how they expected

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Speaker 2: to be informed. And six slides where one of them

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Speaker 2: is the welcome page, another he says questions, and the

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Speaker 2: four in between only have three bullet points each. Just

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Speaker 2: doesn't cut it. And there has been a level of

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Speaker 2: a rebuke within the upper ranks for the civilian oversight

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Speaker 2: and the responsibility that they are supposed to be carrying

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Speaker 2: out coming from the Parliamentary Committee. And it's again, as

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Speaker 2: I said earlier, it's very hard to argue for the

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Speaker 2: Defense Force to get the funding it needs when the

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Speaker 2: leadership just are uninterested and are focusing on, you know,

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Speaker 2: having a BMW, making sure they are in partacliff is

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Speaker 2: paid for and getting promoted to posts that previously didn't

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Speaker 2: exist or were vacant so that they can stay on

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Speaker 2: longer and fix their attensions.

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Speaker 1: RICARDA de Cherff, thank you very much indeed for talking

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Speaker 1: to us this atnoon in your capacity is defense analyst Tabachwana.

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Speaker 1: That's where the golf day is taking place, and the

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Speaker 1: streets and sidewalks leading to the golf course must be

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Speaker 1: repaired and cleaned. The rest of the residential area is

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Speaker 1: falling apart with enormous potholes and neglect, but the road

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Speaker 1: to the golf course will at least now be repaired