The South African Navy says under-funding over the past few years has had a devastating effect on its operations to combat unlawful activities along the country’s shoreline.He was speaking at the opening of the South African Navy Festival under way at the navy base in Simon’s Town, outside Cape Town.However, he adds the navy is prepared enough to defend the maritime interests of the country.This is the third longest coastline in Africa.
Lobese says the budget reductions have made the country vulnerable to security threats, including the smuggling of goods and human trafficking among others. “Due to underfunding of the navy over the years, we can only watch helplessly as these crooks steal what belongs to us. This situation is causing me sleepless nights and it should do the same to you.”Meanwhile, the South African Navy Festival has returned back after seven years of its absence.Lobese defended the presence of a Russian vessel at the festival.
“We are mindful of the conflict that is taking place in the Russian Federation and thus having the UN not imposed any sanctions to the Russian Federation and Russia being a member of the BRICS and South Africa itself having not imposed sanctions against Russia. We don’t see any reason why we cannot continue building bridges of cooperation and friendship with the Russian Federation,” he adds.
At the festival, all ships including the Russian vessel are open for public viewing during the course of the three days of the festival. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.