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Dept of Defence

PARLIAMENT’S standing committee on appropriations has called for more funds to be allocated to the Department of Defence as it faces a crisis due to budget cuts, which led to some of its problems.

This comes after the portfolio committee on defence warned that the military base in Pretoria was “under siege” from communities who built houses and stripped it of infrastructure close to the Special Forces School in Murrayhill.

But Rendani Randela of the National Treasury told the committee he understood the call for additional funding for the defence force, but there needed to be reforms in the army.

He said when the committee made an oversight visit it also looked at the personnel in the department.

“The Appropriation Bill in front of you has got R1.8 billion additional funding allocated to the Department of Defence so that they can begin to do something in terms of implementing the reforms, especially to deal with the compensation challenge in defence. In the main, that allocation will be for the rejuvenation of the defence force,” he said.