Chairperson, hon members, officials of departments, last but not least, members of the public, hon Minister, I just love this debate. After one year in the committee I know my customers and being so far down on the list, I have rightly expected everybody to cover almost everything.
So, I want to focus on two aspects: professionalism and leadership. After four years in this House, I can say with certainty that I will not be surprised next year this time if the goals could not be achieved, simply because the root of the problem runs much deeper than the hon Minister and many of her colleagues can control.
The root cause is that politicians tolerate an unhealthy organisational culture, and that includes tolerating underperforming leadership. Instead of setting an example, people in leadership positions are pursuing their own selfish interests relentlessly.
We as the opposition are not in control of the country's administration, the ruling party is. Unless the ruling party introspectively, and as a collective, rids itself of the prevailing organisational culture, there will be no progress.
Hon Minister, I respect your earnest efforts to turn the Public Service around and we support your intentions. But regardless of all the good intentions, personal sacrifice and political will, there are things beyond your influence and control. When state officials and Members of Parliament are not placed in their fields of expertise, the professionalism is lost, mediocrity creeps in and the interests of the public are not served properly.
My biggest concern is what you are up against and how you will be able to overcome the prevailing organisational culture and instill professionalism, especially at leadership level.
Let me demonstrate my statement with two examples, as my time is limited. I have chosen two departments where lives are at stake and where lives are lost, the police and the military. For instance, will the Minister of Police work with you or against you? Some of his public servants think it is standard practice to drag a man behind a police vehicle and let him die in police custody. In the case of this incident at least high-ranking officers should have been brought to book and dismissed.
Having untrained and undisciplined forces armed with a licence to kill under you is a grave risk to the public and is nothing less than dereliction of duty.
Further examples are that you cannot shoot a man at point-blank range in the chest or the head with a rubber bullet and think he will not die. A high-ranking police officer admits before the Marikana inquiry that the police force is not trained for public unrest situations. The billions in damages that are claimed from the SA Police Service is an indictment in a police force seriously deficient of professional leadership and basic military discipline.
If the hon Minister succeeds in convincing the hon Minister of Police to professionalise his force, she's up against the Supreme Commander when we get to this National Defence Force. In Latin "paratus" means "ready".
So, we have paratroops in Africa, ready troops that weren't ready. We will never see a public inquiry over this shameful excuse for a military operation that is now referred to by the public as the bungee-jumpers' deployment - expensively trained troops, the cream of the crop, wasted in an almost carbon-copy disaster of what happened to the British at Isandlwana.
For a Supreme Commander that sings about his machine gun and who should know about the military history of that January day in the Zulu Kingdom, it is inconceivable that our troops were deployed in such a way in the Central African Republic.
There is no proof that the troops had a carefully prepared and properly dug- in main base, with bunkers, trenches, a properly set-up firebase, or adequate medical facilities.
Airborne troops without air support, without air transport, without air resupply, without air drones, without air reconnaissance, without air evaluation - airborne without any air. No proper mission, no proper planning, no foresight, no adjustment to changed circumstances, no intelligence-gathering, no idea.
Either it was clueless and unprofessional operational leadership, a strategic blunder where 300 generals could not work out how to deploy 300 troops, or the Supreme Commander, the President, should take full responsibility for his decisions if he cannot find the generals at fault.
In seven decades since the introduction of airborne troops, we have apparently either learned nothing or have forgotten everything, or perhaps the executive interfered or disregarded the advice of the generals.
More than 70 years ago, the first fully-fledged airborne force was incorporated into the Luftwaffe, the German air force. Doesn't that say something about the mobility and tactical deployment, communication, co- ordination, control and command that is required, an airborne force part of an air force. Weren't those Germans true professionals and just brilliant in their strategic vision and operational deployment of their airborne forces?
In fact, the German airborne assault on the Mediterranean Island of Crete happened exactly 72 years ago, from 20 May until 30 May 1941. On this day, at about this time, the German counter-attack takes Maleme airfield - not Malema - after two days of heavy fighting and heavy casualties on both sides, opening up the way for further reinforcements and a German victory. That didn't happen in the Central African Republic, CAR.
After 72 years, what a contrast with the SA National Defence Force's view of the deployment of airborne troops. That amounts to irresponsible leadership, either operational or political, and if a Supreme Commander cannot command or demand consequences, he should get out of the driver's seat and leave it to the professionals.
Like elsewhere in the Public Service and the executive, there are currently no proper consequences for the CAR disaster. What we really need is somebody accepting responsibility, accountability and suffering the consequences. We hope the hon Minister convinces the other members of the Cabinet and the Supreme Commander to dance to her tune, not to the tune of "bring me my machine gun", which turned out to be useless.
When the sun came out, it was called Waterkloof Air Force Base, but by the time the sun set, it was called Gupta International. [Interjections.]