COVID-19 adding extreme pressure on SANDF budget

The Secretary of the Defence Department Dr Sam Gulube says the deployment of soldiers to assist in combating the spread of COVID-19, has placed their compensation expenditure under extreme pressure.

The department on Tuesday briefed Parliament’s Defence and Military Veterans Committee on its strategic plans, annual performance plan and budget for 2020/21.

Thousands of soldiers have been deployed across the country to assist the police to monitor adherence to national lockdown regulations.

Gulube says every year the budget for employee compensation is cut by R 3billion and the deployment for COVID-19 has made this worse, even though 63 percent of the department’s R156 billion budget goes towards salaries and wages.

The shortfall on cost of employees is now projected to be R2.9 billion and this year with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Below is a graphic of how to report security forces:

In April police watchdog IPID investigated 38 cases against police officials across the country for misconduct during the first part of the country’s national lockdown.

The investigations included two deaths in police custody in Limpopo, two deaths in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.

More details on SANDF deployment