Anger is rising at the rising cost of South Africa's massive rearmament program.
The National Assembly's standing committee on public accounts learned on October 11 that the cost of the program — budgeted at 30 billion rand (US$4.2 billion) in February — has ballooned to R43.8 billion. The committee heard that the cost of the program could eventually cost up to R60 billion (US$8.5 billion).
The African National Congress government's defence budget was increased by a massive 28% in February to pay for the first stage of a spending spree that includes three new submarines, four corvette warships, 30 helicopters and 42 jet fighters and trainers.
The parliamentary committee also heard that the promised economic benefits from the arms deals with many of the world's largest arms makers could be far less than the government claimed. The government last year claimed that the deals would inject R104 billion into the South African economy and create 65,000 jobs.
The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) on October 12 pointed out that the R14 billion "top up" alone was seven times this year's budget for the delivery of local government services. "Services are in crisis across the country with [water and electricity] disconnections at a massive level precisely because funding to local government has dropped by over 80% since 1991. Central government continues to insist that there is no money for services ... yet there is seemingly a spare R14.5 billion in the coffers for arms deals", SAMWU noted.
SAMWU pointed out that the arms deal had "pushed the country R45 billion further into debt, which future generations would be paying off for the next century. The deal has shown no benefits for South Africans — not one job has been created — and the government is slashing the jobs of workers in the parastatals [state-owned firms] allegedly to alleviate the debt crisis. Yet the sale of state assets has only raised a fraction that was borrowed to finance this deal! It is clear that the sales will never have any meaningful impact on the debt burden built up mainly during apartheid."
SAMWU demanded "the immediate cancellation of the arms deal, the scrapping of the apartheid debt and the diversion of the monies saved into service delivery".
On October 13, Jubilee 2000 South Africa, a branch of the international movement against Third World debt, reiterated its opposition to the "outrageous" arms deal. "The R60 billion dwarfs expenditure on basic needs. Government allocates a scant R4 billion to housing and less than a billion [rand] each to land reform and the Community Water Supply and Sanitation program. The deal will dramatically escalate our country's debt and repayments will compromise our ability to allocate adequate resources to areas of pressing social need for years and decades to come."
Jubilee 2000 declared: "Our country doesn't need warships, submarines, fighter planes and helicopters. We don't need promises of jobs that don't come to fruition. We need real jobs and we need to meet people's constitutional rights to basic needs."
BY NORM DIXON