By Akani Nkuna
The domestic deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) will cost taxpayers at least R10 million a month but could rise to hundreds of millions, depending on the size of the troop deployment, defence analyst Darren Olivier has said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last week that the army would be deployed to assist police in combatting violent crime in the Cape Flats and illegal mining in Gauteng.
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Olivier told Inside Politics that the projected monthly cost was a poor use of public funds at a time of weak growth, strained state finances and high unemployment.
“When you take a soldier and deploy them outside their jurisdiction, in this case to police civilians, you are required to pay them certain allowances, which bloats the budget. [The cost is] projected to be at R10 million per month, for R3000 per soldier a day,” said Olivier.
“You are not only paying their salaries but these additional allowances, hence it is not cheap. Military equipment in general is specialised and heavy and obviously if you are using it to do regular patrols you get a lot more wear and tear, therefore it needs more maintenance at a high cost.”
Ramaphosa’s plan was welcomed by several opposition parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and ActionSA, as well as the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is part of the governing coalition.
Olivier also questioned preparedness for domestic operations, citing a separate announcement days before SONA that the army would be deployed in the Eastern Cape, with a proposed start date of the last weekend of February.
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With the scope and number of personnel still unclear, he said that the SANDF could be overstretched, given long-standing underfunding, and that a prolonged deployment risked eroding the military’s deterrent effect.
“Even though the public has lost faith in the police, they are going to realise at some point — especially if the operation continues for many months — that the military cannot solve the problem either,” he added.
“And at that point, two things are going to happen: Number one, organised crime is going to lose its fear of the military, and number two, the public is going to lose its confidence in the military, what happens then is that you have no plan B.”
Olivier said a cautious approach was needed. He added there needed to be a clear legal and operational framework setting out the limits of force. Improvements in policing capacity and training also had to be prioritised.
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“The only way forward is to fix these fundamental issues in policing, to recognise that the military is still dependent on the police when they do this — that they do not replace the police,” said Olivier.
INSIDE POLITICS