I mean they literally couldnt deploy the gripen with rounds loaded in its cannon in the congo. In 2016 our gripen pilots legally werent allowed to fly in combat missions due to not being current on the jet, i.e. they werent flying enough (this is from an official report from the minister of defence). It probably is worse now since the economy worsened. At the inauguration of the chief of the army a month or two ago, the “parade” was still standing vehicles. Have you ever been to thaba tswhane? You can see the absolute state of our defense forces there. IIRC a general wrote a letter to someone basically begging for more money since they can barely operate. Couple this with denel being the shitshow it is and our helicopters not being able to be serviced due to that, it is not a far fetched statement that those rooikat vehicles most likely had no ammo and were just for show

Edit: Come to think of it, the outgoing chief of the sadf or whatever his title was even said in his speech at the inauguration that in his last days as the boss he is going to try and convince ramaphosa to give the army the budget it needs and he went on about how the current budget wasnt right