Deputy Speaker, after consultation with my colleagues, I thought to use the first minute of this debate to inform the House of an unfortunate incident that happened on the border between Mozambique and South Africa yesterday. We had two fatalities. One was a South African, a member of the Reserve Force, the other, a Mozambican. One Mozambican woman was critically injured.
We, together with the Mozambican government, have formed a joint commission to look into the matter so that we can deal with it as expeditiously as possible. In the meantime, another Reserve Force member who was involved in the incident is in the hands of the police, and we are also looking at possible wrongdoing on his part. I thought I should inform members, because it does involve our neighbours; it does involve our responsibilities.
The Second Amendment Bill of the Defence Force Act has been occasioned by three separate issues that needed our urgent attention. The first is the creation of a new dispensation for the Defence Force, with the establishment of the Defence Force Commission. The second is the creation of an obligation by Reserve Force members to serve in peace time, and the third is the definition of "military command".
To this end, this marks the end of a saga around a Bill, a saga based on a deliberate misunderstanding intended to inflame and misrepresent. However, I will come back to this later on. As it marks the end of the saga, so it ushers in the beginning of a better dispensation for the Defence Force and the opportunity to deal with the needs of our soldiers in a very unique environment that requires unique responses.
When we took over government in 1994 and adopted a minimalist approach to our Constitution, our intention was very clear. Defence had to be changed from what it was in apartheid days to reflect the ethos of the present. In our engagement and our eagerness to do this, we rode roughshod over a number of matters. We are now saddled with a situation where the conversion of the Defence Force to a department of state is not working and which impedes the development of a force as a force. We have sought, therefore, to pause awhile and create a dispensation that responds to the uniqueness of the Defence Force.
The Constitution requires the SA Defence Force to be "a structured institution managed as a disciplined military force". Internationally, service in the military differs from that in the civilian sector. The high standards of patriotism, discipline, courage and self-sacrifice that are demanded in the execution of these duties are very unlike those which you find in the civil service. Unity of command and obedience to legitimate orders from superiors are the foundation of military cohesion and the attainment of military objectives. By their very nature, these prerequisites underscore the uniqueness of military service and therefore require a different approach towards determining conditions of service within the military. The proposed establishment of the National Defence Force service conditions responds to this need and seeks to create a unique military service dispensation outside the general Public Service.
With this legislation, we create the commission that will do for the Defence Force what the Public Service Commission does for the Public Service. The Minister of the Public Service and Administration issues regulations that govern the Public Service. The regulations governing the Public Service can hardly be the environment in which we manage a military force.
Through this legislation today, we will now have the Minister of Defence issuing the regulations for the Defence Force. These regulations are called - and I underscore this - conditions of service for the Defence Force, with recommendations that come from the commission. In the Public Service, these conditions are called conditions of service of the Public Service. So too, in the Defence Force, do we call them conditions of service for the Defence Force. They will cover a whole range of matters, from promotions to rank, and many others. In short, conditions of service cover the totality of how the state relates to the Defence Force, and the terms of engagement, as it were.
Unfortunately, the reading by some of us, fuelled also by the media, has been a misreading of the conditions of service relating to salaries and living conditions. It is not about what you have been reading in the media. The Bill relates to conditions of service, which is a technical term used exclusively in the Public Service to mean the conditions under which both the state and the entity will abide as they continue to conduct their relationship.
Through this Bill, the commission that will be established will align us with internationally accepted best practice. A commission of this nature is part and parcel of the governance structures of the Defence Force. We have sought and received a great deal of support from the Public Service Commission. They see in this sectoral, but much-needed, help in their constitutional mandate. We have negotiated what we will be responsible for and remain committed to ensuring that we will provide the Public Service Commission with reports on our work on an annual basis.
Having said that, please allow me to offer my profound gratitude to the Interim National Defence Force Commission, whose job included assistance in crafting the Bill before you now. For the past two years, the department has been engaged in studies involving several countries, and when the interim commission was established, the work was handed over for them to complete. I wish to thank them most sincerely, and especially those of them who are in this House, for the hard work they have put into this. I want to underline here that the creation of the Defence Force Commission had nothing to do with the protesting soldiers. It is a commission mooted two months before the protests in this House during my Budget Vote speech on 3 July 2009. It is an institution we established in the intelligence services in 2002 and it worked very well. It gave me the experience that I sought to bring into this environment.
It is an institution the Defence Force has been battling to establish for some time, and at this point I would encourage the hon Lekota to listen. Had the hon Lekota not been busy fighting for the leadership of the ANC, he might have attended to this much earlier. However, we are here now and we are attending to the matter, hon Lekota. [Applause.] [Interjections.]
When the interim commission has concluded its work, the report will be presented to Cabinet and, thereafter, tabled here. I repeat, for emphasis, that the establishment of the commission was not in response to the deplorable conduct that took place at the Union Buildings. Instead, the Bill establishes a mechanism to deal with the unique position of the Defence Force and the governance that it requires. I move on.
Secondly, the Bill, in its amendment, fills a lacuna we experienced in the appointment of Chiefs of the Defence Force. What we have defined here is "military command". This is spelled out in the Constitution, section 202(1), and it directs the President to appoint the military command of the Defence Force. The Constitution, however, does not define or provide any guidance on who would constitute the envisaged military command. The Defence Act, 2002, also does not provide any guidance in this regard. The proposed insertion of a new section 4(a) of the Defence Act Amendment Bill seeks to address this lacuna in the law and create certainty as to the composition of the military command.
The military command, as agreed to by the portfolio committee, consists of the following: the Chief of the Defence Force, the Chief of the SA Army, the Chief of the SA Air Force, the Chief of the SA Navy, the Surgeon- General, the Chief of Joint Operations, the Chief of Defence Intelligence, the Chief of Human Resources, and the Chief of Logistics. This composition is informed by the level of the posts, which is a three-star-level general, and the responsibility for the command of the forces under them.
Finally, the Bill also regularises the deployment of the Reserve Force in peace time, a much-needed step that will assist us in overcoming a number of impediments. Reserve Force members currently serve on a voluntary basis or render service in terms of a contract. Put simply, they are only compellable to serve during war time or a state of national defence. Now that we have this Bill before us, we are hoping to utilise this much-needed resource to assist us in the work that we are doing, especially around the borders. I thank all of those members of the committee who supported the Bill. The Defence Force needed this a long time ago, and now that we have come to this, I would like to thank them most sincerely, despite the glitches that we had with assenting to this Bill. Thank you very much. [Applause.]