South Africa’s armed forces are confronting crises that range from grounded aircraft to ageing ICT infrastructure. Among these is a shortage of basic military kit, particularly boots.
Defence force union Sandu says soldiers are without combat boots and uniforms, which in some cases forces them to buy equipment to remain operational.
Under the banner Boots4Troops the union is turning a logistical grievance into a pressure campaign. In a notice to members, it says its aim is “to ensure that the SANDF [South African National Defence Force] is held to its legal obligation to outfit/issue our members [with outfits] properly to do their work” so that soldiers don’t have to pay for their boots or for having their uniforms tailored.
The union submitted an initial list of 32 soldiers affected and said legal action would follow if the matter was not resolved within two weeks from April 24.
The union’s attorneys sent a letter on April 29. “We hold the following instructions,” the lawyers wrote, “to demand that all the members as per the attached list be furnished with the relevant uniforms and/or boots within 14 days”. If the defence force failed to carry this out, it would proceed to the Pretoria high court.
The defence department says it received the complaint and takes it seriously, “particularly as far as [it relates] to operational readiness, discipline and the welfare of uniformed members”. However, it says the matter could not be addressed in full within the time demanded by the union, though it is committed to meeting its obligations under defence legislation.
The SANDF has, for years, struggled with ageing equipment, procurement delays and shrinking fiscal allocations. Even seemingly mundane shortages can become acute in expeditionary environments.
Army troops are issued with two pairs of combat boots that have an expected service life of two years. Yet soldiers deployed in tropical conditions, including in Mozambique and previously in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have reported rapid deterioration of the standard-issue footwear, with some saying boots lasted only a few weeks.
The SANDF says in its latest policy document, Journey to Greatness, that boots now in use have been “found to have a series of failures that [differ] depending on the area of operations”.
In 2022 SANDF chief Gen Rudzani Maphwanya mentioned the concept of “putting the soldier first” and said: “Our litmus test should be to provide for our soldiers in terms of shelter, mobility, personal equipment, uniforms and boots.”
Soldiers deployed in tropical conditions ... have reported rapid deterioration of the standard-issue footwear
According to the union, some of its members reported having last received the correct uniform or boots in 2012. One member could not recall when last they had been issued boots, and, like many others, had been buying their own.
Several described their uniforms as “very faded ... untidy and unprofessional”.
One soldier said: “The last time I was issued with the correct uniform was in 2017. Since then, I have been given uniforms that were too big, and I had to have them tailored to fit me at my own expense.”
But the department rejects suggestions of systemic collapse, arguing that the provisioning of boots and uniforms is constrained by “established supply-chain management processes, budgetary allocations and logistical distribution systems”.
Military officials attributed the shortages to several factors, including “supply chain disruptions and contractual constraints” as well as “budgetary limitations impacting the pace and scale of replenishment cycles” and difficulties in stock verification and forecasting.
The SANDF also suggests that some complaints may involve disputes over replacement schedules or privately purchased equipment. According to the department’s preliminary findings, “certain members have received partial kit issues [that are] not reflected in the submission”, while in other instances soldiers had obtained “nonstandard items independently, which complicates official replacement processes”.
The department says remedial action is needed. It has announced a “rapid audit” of shortages, the prioritisation of deficiencies affecting operational deploy ability, and efforts to accelerate procurement and distribution.
The dispute may hinge less on whether shortages exist than on whether the defence force has acted reasonably within its financial and logistical constraints. The department has proposed a structured engagement process with the union, including a joint verification task team and a phased implementation plan.
For the defence force, the Boots4Troops initiative is about more than footwear. It says that by encouraging soldiers to register shortages directly with the union, it is attempting to document what is likely a deeper institutional failure within the military bureaucracy.
Armies are often judged by expensive hardware such as aircraft or armoured vehicles, but military effectiveness can erode just as quickly through shortages of the most basic equipment. For the SANDF, a dispute over boots reveals wider anxieties about readiness, funding and the state’s capacity to sustain its armed forces.
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