Defence Minister Thandi Modise has hinted at the establishment of an intermediary force comprising soldiers and police that would be able to be deployed with speed to crack down on violence and looting as it happened last month in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
She said this would not be unique to South Africa as other countries had such a force to deal with riots.
She said the country must not be caught off-guard as happened when violence broke out in the two provinces.
Modise was addressing the National Assembly where the joint standing committee on defence was tabling its report on the violence in KZN and Gauteng.
Modise said the security cluster must be on top of the situation when it came to violent situations and be able to respond.
“On that note we can promise, we will do our best. We are also asking that we take time to relook at the structures. At some point we wanted to suggest to this Parliament that you actually need an intermediary force, a force that is between the soldiers and the police.
“A force that is just right to deploy in situations that we have just experienced. It would not be a unique force. France has a force like that. I want to say hopefully the deployment of the soldiers helped,” said Modise.
She added that they wanted to resuscitate Armscor and Denel in order to fix the army.
“In that regard I want us to have a discussion to use which we have here, relooking at Armscor and Denel capacities, (and) resuscitate those because without those two jewels we are going to be incapacitated, we will be caught flat-footed,” said Modise.
Political Bureau