Fog of war over DRC troop funds

Budget sidestep means deployment is unfunded at present

SA troops are already in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) facing a deadly onslaught by armed groups, but SA’s participation in Operation Thiba remains unfunded, despite government promises.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has implied repeatedly that the government would provide additional funding for the Southern Development Community (Sadc) operation, yet clarity remains elusive.

“The costs for this deployment are unfunded in the 2023 /24 [department of defence] financial allocation and [are] considered unforeseen and unavoidable,” was how Lt-Gen Stan Sangweni, chief of joint operations, put it in his presentation before parliament’s joint standing parliamentary committee on defence on Thursday.

He said it would not be the first time that the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) had to deploy without funding, but it had never done so on this scale. In such instances the SANDF would usually receive some compensation later.

Sangweni said in a short briefing that the compensation of soldiers for the first year of Operation Thiba would amount to R1.2bn, with the total cost coming to R2.3bn.

During his budget speech last week, finance minister Enoch Godongwana did not provide the expected answers. He said: “This budget will also allocate funding for the deployment of soldiers in Mozambique and the DRC. Work on costing and identifying the needs for these critical missions will continue throughout the year and funding will be allocated as such.”

According to opposition parties and experts, this in effect means the SANDF will somehow have to absorb the costs for Operation Thiba from its own meagre budget until the medium-term budget allocations in November.

This would have a disastrous effect on the SANDF.

Godongwana allocated even less money to the financially strapped defence budget.

The total defence budget for 2024/25 amounts to R51.8bn, which in real terms is a decline of 1.25% from last year’s adjusted R52.4bn.

The army has been allocated an increase of R4.7bn, to R16.9bn, but the air force’s allocation has been reduced 11.7% to R6.5bn.

As the air force has been unable to provide a single aircraft to the Sadc mission, the SA troops in the DRC will have none of their own helicopters and no air cover for any operations.

In fact, the repatriation of the two soldiers who died two weeks ago after a mortar attack on their base near Sake was reportedly delayed because of the unavailability of a chartered aircraft in the absence of any air force aircraft.

Only about 250 of the 2,900 soldiers committed to Operation Thiba are in the DRC already. Apart from the mortar attack, troops suffered injuries during an ambush, while one of their camps was fired on last week.

The SANDF and government are keeping mum on when and how the rest of the force will be deployed.

Members of the joint parliamentary committee, which is supposed to provide oversight on all military matters, complained that the presidency informed the committee about the deployment only two months after the first soldiers were already in the DRC. It was informed about the mission on February 13 a day before the two soldiers were killed.

Ramaphosa is supposed to inform parliament within a reasonable time after any unforeseen deployment of soldiers. Parliament received the letter

regarding Operation Thiba on December 21, but it took two months to get to the committee.

Dennis Ryder from the DA said the two soldiers died without the committee’s endorsement of the operation and thus it happened on Ramaphosa’s watch.

Committee chair Cyril Xaba concluded that “someone in the administration was sleeping at the wheel. That is unacceptable.”

The committee will be informed about the status of forces and shortcomings during a closed meeting in future.

Sangweni said all Sadc member states promised to contribute in some way towards the mission, known as the Sadc Mission in the DRC (SamiDRC). SA, Tanzania and Malawi could provide troops in time, with the agreement that other countries will contribute at a later stage.

On funding the operation, Thobekile Gamede, acting secretary of defence, said her budget committee would dissect the budget allocations according to operational needs.

Funds on the operational budget could be redirected, and the Treasury would be approached only if no means of scratching the necessary funding together could be found.

Close sources in the DRC told Business Day that the soldiers already there were well aware that they were on their own to do battle in an impossible mission. This was affecting their morale as well.

Persistent allegations on social media that SA politicians are personally benefiting from mineral agreements and that SamiDRC was concocted to protect vague mining concerns prompted the department of defence to deny the claims last week.

Defence spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini rubbished it as “hogwash” and an attempt to besmirch the good name of the SANDF and the government.

The SANDF found the allegations “disingenuous, insulting and disrespectful to all who are deployed in the DRC in defence of ordinary citizens of that country and region”, Dlamini said.

DA defence spokesperson Kobus Marais said it was baffling that SA, as the most southern Sadc country, had to bear the brunt of conflict in the grouping’s northernmost country. Other member states with a much bigger interest in that region and with better military resources were not involved.

“This is a conflict where the AU and the East African countries should provide a diplomatic solution not at the cost of our soldiers.”