The minister addressed the Cape Town Press Club yesterday. “South Africa as the biggest economy of the SADC region cannot avoid this responsibility”, the minister said.
He said if the region couldn’t be stabilised, a spill over of large numbers of refugees into the country would continue.
“And the money we do not want to spend to assist the stabilisation in the DRC, Burundi, Angola and so on, we will find that we will have to spend that money taking care of the citizens of those countries in our hospitals, prisons, clinics, schools and in the squatter camps where some of them will reach to,” Lekota said.
He said there was a need for the region to transform the existing defence forces, including the equipment they used.
“Our defences have to be appropriate to meet all these challenges and conditions in which we find ourselves, even ourselves we have to deal with our training in a new way”.
He added that new training focused on peace efforts, rather than on attacking other countries.
Lekota emphasised the need for the region to work together in building peace and stability to attract investment for Africa’s development.
He said development was necessary for the people. Thus sound conditions had to be created for foreign aid and investment in the region.
Lekota announced that SADC Heads of State would soon meet to sign their support for the establishment of the African Standby Force. –BuaNews.
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