Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) leader, Mzwanele Nyhontso, says that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has poor safety measures.
He says it’s not the first time that fires have gutted its military bases.
Nyhontso says more than 100 decommissioned military vehicles were destroyed at the Wallmannsthal base in Pretoria in September 2021 and another 80 vehicles were damaged in September 2017.
Nyhontso’s comments come as the bereaved families are to start to identifying the bodies of their loved ones after they perished at the Lohatla combat training centre in the Northern Cape on Friday.
This after a fire at a nearby mine rapidly spread to the centre.
Nyhontso says the only difference between the fires at Wallmannsthal and Lohatla is that soldiers died in the recent incident.
“The bottom line here is that, SANDF is very unprofessional in its inadequate fire measures. It does not matter where the fire originated. At Wallmannsthal, it was said that the fire originated from the nearby Wallmannsthal informal settlement. This time in Lohatla, it’s said that the fire originated from the nearby mines. All it means is that SANDF bases can be easily attacked in September/October period when there is dry grass and strong winds. Northern Cape is generally dry and when you deploy your troops there, veld-fire should be part of the threat assessment made.”
VIDEO | Analysing the Northern Cape Military Base fire with Eric Stock:
