Pat-a-cake... soldier man

It’s the latest SA iteration of the Bible: “They shall beat their swords into spatulas and their spears into tester needles…” The SA National Defence Force (SANDF) has found an innovative solution to its crippling lack of funding. It’s started a chain of bakeries “to create self-sustainment”, it says.

The idea is that the bakeries – employing military veterans, the dependants of soldier families and people with disabilities – will feed the soldiers and help “overcome budget difficulties”. The move adds new meaning to the quip about being short of dough.

Apart from feeding the troops, the bakeries will sell their cakes and loaves at local markets, to the benefit of disadvantaged communities. Last week, SANDF (Pty) Ltd opened its sixth franchise at the Potchefstroom base.

No doubt, soon there will not be a SANDF forward base anywhere between Kinshasa in the DR Congo to Pemba in Mozambique, which doesn’t boast a Bread Basket knock-off. Wherever the SANDF military is, there will be a Bombes Away, raking in the locals’ cash from the sale of baguettes, croissants, multilayered gateaux and delicious pain au chocolat.

Or more likely, vetkoek, koeksisters, rusks and pot bread. This is how we spread a South African culinary culture: by military conquest, not SA Masterchef.

The DA, despite forever berating government departments and state-owned entities for the lack of innovation and awareness of market forces, has reacted with a singular lack of enthusiasm to the bakery initiative.

Kobus Marais, the DA shadow minister of defence, has called it a “bizarre” move. That’s all very well, but what is the beleaguered Defence Minister Thandi Modise supposed to do? It’s a military truism that “an army marches on its stomach”.

Last week, parliament heard that soldiers sometimes have to go hungry or buy their own food, off-base, because of provisioning failures. These include, according to the Defence Force Service Commission, incorrect quantities of food supplies, as well as substandard and expired products.

The problem, to start with, is that there simply isn’t the budget. The 2020-21 budget reduced medium-term defence spending by R15.4 billion. The SANDF’s own estimate is that its budget is less than half of what it needs.

No wonder it has to resort to cake sales and bring-and-bake market days. Next come jumble sales and crowdfunding on social media.

Of course, this is not the SANDF’s first tilt at private enterprise. It was quick to seize on the entrepreneurial opportunities that were kicked loose in the pharmaceutical sector by the outbreak of the Covid pandemic last year.

At a bargain-basement cost of only R215 million, the SANDF secured from Cuba 970 000 vials of Heberon Interferon-Alpha-2B – touted by its revolutionary allies as a wonder cure for the coronavirus. Admittedly, there were some downsides to the deal.

First, the landed price of R221.65 per dose was substantially higher than the approximate $7 (about R111.13) a dose that SA would pay to access big-name brands such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. But hey, miracle cures – as snake oil salesman Dr Oz will tell you – is a niche product.

The idea behind a SANDF bakery is that it will employ military vets, people with disabilities and help feed soldiers and ‘overcome budget difficulties’.