The same instructions were sent to bases in Zeerust and Mafikeng – according to a letter posted to social media by SANDU secretary Pikkie Greeff.<\/p>\n
But a last minute meeting between the South African National Defence Union and the military apparently led to the SANDF backtracking on its plans and sending food instead to all affected bases.<\/p>\n
The letter, which was sent to Minister of Defence and Military Veterans\u201a Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula\u201a SANDF chief\u201a General Solly Shoke\u201a Secretary of Defence\u201a Sam Gulube and commanders from the affected bases, was also posted to Twitter on Greeff’s page.<\/p>\n
Later during Wednesday, Greeff tweeted that \u201cthe SANDF has just capitulate(d). Food has now been delivered to the affected bases. Soldiers are eating. Thanks Sandu. Amazing work!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In the letter of demand\u201a the union said that the SANDF was obliged to provide the affected members with \u201csufficient rations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cVarious SANDF members affected by this instruction\u201a are unable to comply as they do not have the financial means to travel long distance to their homes at this time of the month and are now stuck in their respective bases\u201a without rations\u201a\u201d read the letter.<\/p>\n
Greeff was sharply critical of government on twitter\u201a saying: \u201cWhile our President Zuma is on his way to attend Castro\u2019s funeral\u201a his soldiers are going hungry. Would Fidel have been proud?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Soldiers at 4SAI Military Base in Middelburg were told to go home because the SANDF had run out of food. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":60673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Yaseen Gaffar","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[6019,6020,6026,6025,6024,6022,6023,6027,6021],"class_list":["post-60670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines","tag-4sai","tag-military-base","tag-military-rations","tag-no-food-for-soldiers","tag-pikkie-greeff","tag-sandf","tag-sandu","tag-soldiers-told-to-go-home","tag-south-african-national-defence-force"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"tag_labels":["4sai","military base","Military rations","No food for soldiers","Pikkie Greeff","SANDF","SANDU","soldiers told to go home","South African National Defence Force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}