The destruction, theft and sabotage of electricity and rail infrastructure is a threat to South Africa and its economy and consequently this may see the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) deployed to safeguard it, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Thandi Modise has said.
She was speaking at the SA Army’s Exercise Vuk’uhlome Distinguished Visitors’ Day, which was held at the Combat Training Centre at Lohatla in the Northern Cape last Thursday.
Discussing the security threats to South Africa in response to a defenceWeb query, Modise briefly mentioned regional threats such as terrorism, which has seen the SANDF deploy to Mozambique as part of the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM).
Modise spent more time discussing domestic security threats, including poverty and unemployment, noting that the July 2021 unrest is still fresh in many people’s minds. She added that when the economy is not doing well and the power supply is not stable, “the first people to get restless are your own citizens.” Although the SANDF will only be deployed to quell civil unrest if asked to, she said the SANDF must be prepared for any eventuality.
Part of Exercise Vuk’uhlome involved riot response and crowd control demonstrations, with soldiers and military policing deploying horses, motorcycles and water cannon to disperse protestors. The exercise showcased the capabilities of the Army’s new modern brigades, which have been established to respond to new asymmetric threats, including civil unrest and terrorism.
Expanding on civil threats facing South Africa, Modise said that there is a need to look at the protection of power supply infrastructure as there has been destruction and sabotage of this. She revealed that the SANDF has been asked to examine the protection of electrical and rail infrastructure.
Modise said the dismantling of the railways is a threat to the economy and as a result the SANDF is ready to deploy to protect this infrastructure, and is considering such a deployment as it is essential for the economy to be able to safeguard the transport of goods.
It is not clear how this would be funded, as the SANDF is already fiscally stretched and busy with multiple internal and external deployments, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and along the country’s borders.
Earlier this year President Cyril Ramaphosa faced calls to label South Africa’s more than twenty-two thousand kilometres of rail as critical infrastructure in the face of ongoing destruction, and he acknowledged it is “vital” for the economy and the “development and well-being of our people”.
In September, four of South Africa’s State Owned Companies (SOCs) – Transnet, Telkom, Eskom and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), together with the South African Police Service, announced an integrated approach towards combatting the scourge of cable theft, battery theft and infrastructure damage.
The entities agreed on, amongst others, further integrating their security solutions, which collectively come to about R10 billion annually, supporting the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Prosecuting Authority on criminal cases related to incidents on their networks and working even closer with communities in protecting infrastructure.
Transnet CEO Portia Derby said the company has experienced a spike in fuel pipeline hits, which cost at least R400 million to clean up, with incidents on its freight rail operations as well. Cable theft has steadily increased, going from 1 598 incidents in 2017/18 to some 4 356 incidents in 2021/22. Some 1 506 km of cable had to be replaced during the same period, with an erosion of about R30 billion to the economy and R2.1 billion in revenue losses.
Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said infrastructure is “being stolen from under our feet” with cables, overhead lines, transformers and conductors coming in at a hefty cost of some R4 billion annually.
Acting CEO of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Hishaam Emeran, told the September roundtable that economic sabotage costs Prasa some R7 billion in direct costs, and between R15 billion to R20 billion annually.
He painted a devastating picture of the impact on Prasa, where thousands of incidents have left the rail network at “near total decimation”, with some 1 000 km of electrical infrastructure and signalling cabling stolen out of a network of some 2 300 km alone.
“One hundred kilometres of rail have been stolen… cut up and physically taken away. Our stations have also not been spared… Of our 590 stations, only 129 are functional as we speak, and we need to bring back those stations. In 2018/19, we were operating on 40 corridors. Today we are operating on 15… we are bringing back a number of those. The reality, unfortunately, is that because of this economic sabotage, we have taken a number of steps backward. As we speak today, passenger rail is not the backbone of the transport system and that is a problem,” he said.
The protection of critical infrastructure has been assigned to the South African Police Service, with the defence force supporting it. Given that the defence budget has been shrinking annually, the military will probably not be able to sustain this and experts have recommended dedicated private security capacities to protect critical infrastructure.
