Presidential spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, says President Cyril Ramaphosa did not sanction Chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) General Rudzani Maphwanya’s visit to Iran.
At a media briefing on Thursday, Magwenya said the SANDF was enabled by bilateral and multilateral frameworks to forge ties with other military forces around the world.
“The exchange of knowledge and the strengthening of professional military to military cooperation is encouraged within our system of government, this includes joint training drills with other countries, cooperation on peacekeeping and rescue mission during natural disasters.
“However, senior military officers do not engage outside of their military purview and they do not represent the country on foreign policy matters neither are they delegated to perform such functions.”
Magwenya said the President did not sanction the visit, as the General’s travel approval “starts and ends” with the Minister.
“As much as the President is the appointing authority and the Commander-in-Chief, he does not get involved in supervising the General’s travel. That process sits with the Minister. So the President did not know [about it],” said Magwenya.
The spokesperson said the issue was indeed a concern.
“In the spirit of heightened geopolitical tensions as well as conflict in the Middle East, one can say the visit was ill-advised.”
He said the General should have been a lot more circumspect with the comments that he made which delve in to the area of foreign policy “that only the President as well as the Department in International Relations and Cooperation are responsible for”.
“We are in a process of managing a very delicate exercise of … resetting diplomatic relations with the United States, but more importantly balancing the trade relationship in such a manner that that trade relationship is mutually beneficial and therefore it is indeed not helpful you then have senior government or military officials making statements that will further inflame the situation,” said Magwenya.
