R1.1 billion shortfall to pay soldiers

On Wednesday, Secretary of Defence, Sam Gulube, told Members of the Defence and Military Veterans Portfolio Committee that the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) has a budget shortfall of R1.1 billion for employee’s salaries.

While a freeze on hiring, large-scale retrenchments and compulsory early retirement were being considered as a way to curb costs, in the mean time the SANDF have taken on a significantly lower number of new recruits. While 11 000 new soldiers joined the army in 2011/12, only 4 200 were trained in the 2013/14 financial year. In total, the SANDF employs 78 000 personnel.

Working hours and external deployment rotation have both been extended. Rotations outside South Africa’s border to places like Sudan and the DRC have been extended from three to six months.

“When posts are vacant, we don’t fill them. We encourage people to take the voluntary exit mechanism and also we are looking at the attrition rate,” Gulube told journalists after the meeting.

DA Shadow Minister for Defence David Maynier said, “Defence forces should not be spending much more than 40% of the defence budget on personnel but what you find in the South African National Defence Force is that it is spending close to 54% ... [They] need to downsize to reduce expenditure on personnel in order to properly fund operations and capital acquisition”.

Flipping through the year's Budget Report, Maynier explained that of the army’s R13.8 billion budget, R9.5 billion went towards the salaries of soldiers and staff. “Less than 1% went to payment for capital assets such as vehicles," he said.

Maynier welcomes the news that the 2014 Defence Review had been tabled in Parliament as he is looking forward to debating its contents later this year. He said that this may include having a hard discussion on down-scaling the army and potentially closing down some military bases.

The Secretary of Defence, in his briefing to the Committee, mentioned the poor conditions of the SANDF’s facilities and the Department of Defence’s willingness to take some of the maintenance responsibilities from the Department of Public Works.

Earlier this year members of the Fourth Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans heard that the backlog in the maintenance and repair of defence facilities was estimated to be R8 billion in 2011 and according to Gulube, the situation was only getting worse. According to Gulube only 1% of defence facilities are in good condition and many soldiers slept in rooms where water dripped from the ceiling.