EFF
1Min
South Africa
Dec 5, 2025
Enough is enough. The SANDF and Minister Motshekga must be summoned to account fully, transparently, and without further delay. Until they do, the EFF will use every parliamentary mechanism available to block this deployment and to defend the oversight authority that the Constitution vests in us.
As the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) permanent representative on both the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans and the Joint Standing Committee on Defence, I am compelled to record my profound outrage at the events that unfolded during the Joint Standing Committee’s briefing on the 5th of December 2025.
What should have been a serious, constitutionally mandated oversight engagement ahead of the next rotation of South African troops under Operation Mistral — the SANDF’s contribution to the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) — was reduced to an insult of historic proportions.
Determined not to repeat last year’s constitutional dereliction, when Parliament was notified of the deployment on Christmas Eve and effectively bypassed, the Joint Standing Committee on Defence this year proactively requested an advance briefing. The SANDF’s response? A six-slide PowerPoint presentation delivered by Lieutenant-General Siphiwe Lucky Sangweni, Chief of Joint Operations, contained less usable information than a tourist brochure.
No troop numbers beyond vague “reductions”, no equipment lists, no force-protection assurances, no lessons learned, no financial breakdown, no mission objectives — nothing that would allow members to fulfil their constitutional duty to assess operational readiness. Six slides. A six-slide middle finger to Parliament. This is not incompetence. This is calculated contempt. We have seen where such contempt leads.
In January 2025, fourteen South African soldiers paid with their lives in the Eastern DRC because the mission was chronically under-resourced, under-equipped, and poorly prepared. Eleven months later, with that inquiry still incomplete and its recommendations apparently ignored, the SANDF expects Parliament to wave through another rotation on the strength of six meaningless slides. The blood of those fallen soldiers demands better.
Parliament — and the nation — deserves better. The insult was compounded by the glaring absence, yet again, of Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Angie Motshekga, who sent another excuse. In her place appeared Deputy Minister, retired Major-General Bantu Holomisa, who honestly and openly informed the Committee that he had been deliberately excluded from all substantive briefings on South Africa’s external deployments.
When a deputy minister of his stature and experience is reduced to a messenger who is kept in the dark by his own department, the crisis of governance inside the Ministry of Defence is laid bare for all to see. This is not an isolated incident. Recent revelations before the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee and the Madlanga Commission investigating allegations of maladministration and corruption levelled by Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi in the South African Police Service similarly exposed the systemic sidelining of deputy ministers across government — individuals appointed to high office yet given no job descriptions, no authority, and no access to critical information.
They are treated as political fire blankets, deployed only when ministers wish to avoid accountability. The picture that emerges is unmistakable: a Minister who treats Parliament with disdain, a military leadership that withholds operational information as a matter of course, and a deliberate strategy to render civilian oversight toothless. This is not administrative oversight; it is a direct assault on the constitutional principle of civilian control over the armed forces.
The EFF will not be complicit in this travesty. Until the SANDF and Minister Motshekga are summoned before the Joint Standing Committee and provide a comprehensive, verifiable briefing that includes, at the very least: • an honest evaluation of previous Operation Mistral rotations, including successes, failures, and lives lost; • exact troop numbers for the forthcoming rotation; • a full inventory of equipment, force-protection measures, and mission-specific training; • complete financial disclosure, including costs to the fiscus and anticipated UN reimbursements; • clear strategic and political objectives aligned with South Africa’s national interest; the EFF representatives will withhold our consent for any extension, or renewal of Operation Mistral.
We remain principled supporters of legitimate African peacekeeping efforts, but principled support is not a blank cheque for executive arrogance, military secrecy, and to cavalierly and callously gamble with the lives of our young soldiers. When Parliament is treated as an irritant rather than a constitutional partner, when soldiers are sent into harm’s way with inadequate resources and zero accountability, we are staring at a constitutional crisis that endangers both the lives of our troops, and the sovereignty of our nation.
Enough is enough. The SANDF and Minister Motshekga must be summoned to account fully, transparently, and without further delay. Until they do, the EFF will use every parliamentary mechanism available to block this deployment and to defend the oversight authority that the Constitution vests in us.
The middle finger has been shown. The gauntlet has now been thrown down. We in the EFF return it — in the service of our people, and with the full authority of the South African Constitution. *Ambassador Carl Niehaus is the EFF Permanent Representative on the Joint Standing Committee on Defence and the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans.
