Hon Speaker and hon members, South Africa as a democracy is supposed to be transparent and answerable to the citizens. It is unbecoming that when citizens ask questions and call for details, we are told that we all want to govern. All governments govern in trust for the citizens. They don't have carte blanche control. The Constitution has inbuilt checks and balances to call for accountability.
The biggest problem that the citizens of this country face is the fact that we have a government elected by the people, but withholds vital information from its people, and the crisis regarding the deployment of our troops to the Central African Republic testifies to that fact.
We have a government that continues to omit sharing vital information with its people, yet when the media reports on these matters, they then turn and attack the media and throw all sorts of threats, including legislative measures.
If the military trainers that were deployed in 2007 were only sent under a military co-operation agreement, why then did it become necessary to send more troops in December? Why did we not withdraw our troops then if they were only there as military trainers? The President's utterances rejecting insinuations to a hidden agenda on his part are baseless and intangible when they cannot be supported by factual evidence and satisfactory explanations. Instead of rejecting criticism, he must rather account for his decisions.
The failure of the Defence Ministry to produce the second memorandum of understanding between South Africa and the CAR also suggests that underhand tactics were employed in the decision.
There is also no mention of the memorandum of understanding in the very detailed Defence Secretariat Third Quarterly Performance Report on Performance Against Plan for 2012-13 over the period 1 October 2012 to 31 December 2012, which was approved by Dr Sam Gulube.
With the new developments of South Africa intending to send troops to the CAR, we urge the Ministry and the President to be upfront on the purpose of further deployment and what is likely to be achieved through it. I thank you.