DoD on alleged non-payment of Umzimvubu Regiment; implementation of cyber warfare strategy & measures to reduce HR; with Ministry

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Defence and Military Veterans

14 September 2022
Chairperson: Mr C Xaba (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Video

The Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans convened in a virtual meeting to receive a briefing from the Department of Defence (DoD) and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) on the alleged non-payment of 815 members of the Umzimvubu Regiment. The Committee was also briefed on the SANDF’s progress in implementing the cyber defence strategy and on the strategic plan to implement measures to reduce the Army's personnel costs.

The Department gave the Committee the background to the complaints of non-payment by members of the uMzimvubu Regiment who had been called up during the KwaZulu-Natal unrest in the middle of last year. The matter had been investigated, and it had been established that there were former members with criminal records, some who had transgressed the military disciplinary code, those who did not integrate, and civilians. A decision had been taken that all members who did not meet the enlistment criteria must be sent home immediately. Of the 808 members who reported to the Regiment, 135 were eligible for payment as they were eligible for enlistment, but 673 members were not because they were former soldiers, ex-members, or civilians --and some had previous convictions and criminal records and were not enlisted in the reserves.

Reporting on the progress of the implementation of its cyber warfare strategy, the DoD said that the Cyber Command was partially operational since it was not fully capacitated, and adequate funding was needed while the cyber defence strategy was under review. Challenges faced by the Cyber Command included the need for conducive infrastructure which would accommodate a fully-fledged Cyber Command capability, as well as funding for equipment, training and personnel for implementing military cyber capabilities.

On the strategic plan to reduce human resources (HR) costs, the Department told the Committee that it had shifted its focus to an average planned personnel strength of 73 000 over the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF), recruiting military skills development system intakes every alternate calendar year, reducing Reserve Force mandates, capping annual increases of regimental and operational allowances and allowances paid in lieu of scarce skills retention, as well as reactivating the implementation of exit strategies, such as the mobility exit mechanism and the employee-initiated severance package.

The Committee was concerned that there was something amiss in the uMzimvubu Regiment matter, but decided that it would allow the process of the convening authority to conclude its investigation, and asked the Army to present the findings of the process to the Committee once it was concluded. On the cyber warfare strategy, the Committee said for the cyber capability to be operational, it required a considerable financial injection. It appealed to the DoD to consider funding the objective considerably. 

It would monitor the implementation of the exit mechanism and the expenditure of the Department. The reconciliation at the end of the financial year would give the Committee a picture of where the Department would be standing in terms of its planned strength, as well as the success of the exit mechanism.

Meeting report

Opening remarks

The Chairperson welcomed the Members and the delegation from the Department of Defence (DoD) and South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to the meeting and acknowledged the presence of the Minister of Defence, the Deputy Minister, as well as the Secretary of Defence in the meeting.

Ms Thandi Modise, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, said the Secretary of Defence would be better suited to lead the Committee through the presentation on cyber security, as she had heard the presentation and was unsure if she agreed with the direction it was leaning towards.

Ms Gladys Kudjoe, Secretary of Defence, introduced the delegation that would present the briefing on the alleged non-payment of the 815 members of the Umzimvubu Regiment, and noted that they were also experiencing challenges with load-shedding and their connection was not secure.

Non-payment of uMzimvubu Regiment issue

Background

The Chairperson had received an email from Mr Cedric Frolick, House Chairperson of the National Assembly, who had received correspondence concerning the uMzimvubu Regiment in December last year. The correspondence was concerning 815 members of the Regiment who were said to have been enlisted during the July unrest last year, but had remained unpaid since their deployment.

He had requested the Committee support team to respond to the correspondence, asking for more information and a list of the names, force numbers, the dates on which the members were engaged, and when they were discharged. The information had been received and was submitted to the Department of Defence (DoD) via the Parliamentary Liaison Officer (PLO), Mr Sanele Monakali, on 2 June, with an instruction that the information must be brought to the attention of the Chief of Human Resources, Admiral Asiel Kubu.

The PLO had sent the message to Admiral Kubu on 3 June, and had copied Mr Bryan Mantyi, the Committee Secretary, to show that the message had been sent, as requested by the Chairperson. The Committee expected that the SA Army would look at each name of the 815 members deployed in uMzimvubu and indicate whether the members had reported to duty, and provide details on why they remained unpaid.

He asked if the team from the SA Army had the list of the 815 members.

It was brought to the Chairperson’s attention that the Secretary of Defence and the delegation from the SA Army were disconnected from the meeting because of load shedding, and were trying to reconnect.

The Chairperson asked Mr Mantyi to read the correspondence from the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in the meantime.

Correspondence from Institute for Justice and Reconciliation

The Committee Secretary presented the correspondence to the Committee.

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation invited the Committee to an orientation on the South African National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security on 19 September in Cape Town. The correspondence was accompanied by a letter from the Speaker of the National Assembly, endorsing the attendance of Members to the event.

The Chairperson asked if the Members had any comments on the correspondence.

Mr S Marais (DA) said any initiative like this was a good one, but he was unsure what would be discussed and how much it would influence the Defence Force. It would have helped to have the details of what would be discussed and who the speakers would be, but the initiative should be supported.

The Chairperson said the correspondence would be distributed to the Members of the Committee.

Umzimvubu Regiment briefing continued

The Chairperson noted that the Secretary of Defence and the Delegation from the SA Army were back in the meeting, and repeated the background to the issue of the non-payment of the 815 members of the uMzimvubu Regiment.

He asked if Maj Gen Michael Ramantswana, Deputy Chief Army, SA National Defence Force (SANDF), had looked at the list of the 815 members.

Maj Gen Ramantswana said they could not hear the Chairperson’s opening remarks on the issue, and proceeded with the presentation.

He said following the July 2021 unrest, the SA Army had to be deployed in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Gauteng to stabilise the situation. Presidential minutes and operational directives were issued for the SA Army to deploy in the affected areas.

After the SA Army's media release, the SA Army and SA Army Infantry formation instructions were issued for the activation of reserve call-ups to be utilised in "Operation Prosper." Members of the reserves were expected to report to their respective units and enlistment would carry on, as contained in the General Regulations dated 2 June 2017.

After the Infantry formation call-Up instruction, a “voice note” was circulated in the Umzimvubu Regiment group. The voice note stated that all those who were soldiers should take the opportunity to report to the Umzimvubu Regiment, whether enlisted or not. A total of 808 members reported at the Regiment and could not be enlisted. This category consisted of former soldiers, ex-members, civilians, those who did not integrate, and those who were not enlisted in the reserves. There were also reserve members in the Regiment who had also reported and were deployed as intended and were already enlisted members of the Umzimvubu Regiment.

Some of those 808 members came from other provinces, while the call-up was for members of the reserves who were supposed to report to their own unit. The members who reported were accommodated at the regiment, even though they were not enlisted as members of the reserves and could not be enlisted.

There were also allegations of new appointees managing the administration of the reserves. These members were kept in the Regiment since reporting, with effect from mid-July to August 2021. They were thereafter transported, as per their request, back to their different destinations since they could not be enlisted for different reasons.

In mid-August 2021, it was brought to the attention of the Army Headquarters through the HR Section and Army Reserves, that there were challenges at the Umzimvubu Regiment. This included administration, and some people who were not eligible for enlistment.

From 15 to 22 August, a team of senior officers was sent to the Umzimvubu Regiment to assess the nature of the problem. The HR team conducted a “feet on the ground” exercise and discovered that the actual number of people under discussion was 808. The team found that there were former members with criminal records, members who had transgressed the military disciplinary code, those who did not integrate, and civilians. A decision was taken that all members who did not meet the enlistment criteria must be sent home immediately. Further to this, there was the proper verification of files for enlistment.

Upon the completion of the verification of files for enlistment, payments were activated for those who qualified. The first payments came out in December 2021, and resulted in allegations of non-payment of members at the Umzimvubu Regiment. Members who did not meet the enlistment criteria were the main reasons for the non-payment.

Following these developments, a decision was taken on 28 December to convene an inquiry. Any intended payment to the affected members was stopped, pending the outcome of the investigation. While some members of the Umzimvubu Regiment (enlisted reserves) were deployed in KZN, payments were made.

The Chairperson shared the list of the 815 members that the Committee had received, and asked the SA Army to comment on the status of each case so that the Committee could send a full report back to the Chairperson of the National Assembly, who would send it back to the complainants.

Ms Kudjoe said they would need to create a spreadsheet to provide details on each member and send it to the Committee, as the presentation only gave an overall summary of the cases.

Discussion

Mr S Marais (DA) said it was not acceptable for the Secretary of Defence to say they would only compile a spreadsheet dealing with each case of the 815 members, because the letter was sent to them months ago, which was ample time for all of that to be done. It seemed like there was a lot of information that the Department had not considered, which posed a question as to whether the Board of Inquiry (BOI) had considered the information requested by the Chairperson. It seemed the BOI would conclude only at the end of September, while the problem at the uMzimvubu  Regiment was discovered over a year ago, which was concerning.

In the presentation, there was reference to an SA Army Instruction 53/2021, which gave an impression that it was not only Reserve Force members who were called up, but also others to be enlisted to be called up. Anyone who had heard the voice note could hear the instruction to get people to line up. The presentation made it seem like there was confusion, whereas the instructions were clear on the call-ups. The voice note was very clear on who had to assist with the administration and management, and Gen Ramatswana should have acknowledged that.

He said there had been 815 people in total, and seven of them had died, yet the Department spoke only of the remaining 808 people. If all 815 people qualified to be paid, it should mean that the families of the seven people who died also had rights to be compensated, so the 815 people must be verified.

He had information that only 56 of the 135 people the Department reportedly paid had actually been paid, as certain members were paid only for a month and not for the full call-up period. He wanted to know why there were only 56 members paid and when the rest of the members would be paid. He also wanted to know if anyone had been paid from General Officer Commanding (GOC) support and why that was the case, as well as the amount that was paid. He also wanted to know if the 56 people paid were also paid through GOC support, or by the Department.

He asked who had paid for the bus transport arranged for the members to go to uMzimvubu and who had made all the arrangements, because that would have been a lot of money that was spent. What did the enlistee salary projections mean, and how many people would it have paid? He hoped that the Committee would receive a report from the BOI.

He wanted to know who signed the letter reportedly sent to some members stating the reasons for their non-enlistment to the reserves. He was certain that all 815 members did not receive the letter. He asked whether it was Col Roger Keeton, OC uMzimvubu Regiment, who had given the instructions on the voice note and under whose instructions he was acting on. He also wanted to know if any consequence management would be enacted against Col Keeton, Gen Joseph Thyalisi and Gen Freeman Moni, and their roles in the uMzimvubu matter.

Dr M Basopu (ANC) wanted to know why the Department had not responded to the Chairperson’s letter requesting a detailed breakdown of each case of the 815 members. The information given to the Committee and the processes that the Department followed were on track, because this was a complicated matter that would need careful consideration before decisions were made. He proposed that the Committee accept the process set by the Department and wait for the outcome, but the Committee would need to set a timeframe and a deadline for feedback to be sent to the Committee.

Responses

The Secretary of Defence said the report was sent to the Office of the Chief of HR, and was not shared with the SA Army. She committed to populating the spreadsheet, providing an update on the information required by the Committee, and reporting on the BOI.  

Gen Ramantswana said the uMzimvubu matter had been subjected to an investigation by the BOI. The investigation was launched because they were concerned with the enlistment process that occurred, as well as resource utilisation, because state resources had been used. The voice note was also subject to investigation by the BOI, and he asked the Committee not to disclose the details of the investigation until the report was released.

The BOI had presented its findings, but the report was found to have shortcomings and it was referred back for a legal review. The legal review was set to conclude at the end of September, and the report would be forwarded to the convening authority, who would have to be satisfied with the information they received in the legal review to make an informed decision regarding the BOI. The issue of the 815 members and the seven members who passed away would also be part of the outcome of the BOI.

He said they had not paid only 56 members out of the 135, and if any of the members were paid from the GOC support, they would have been members from the Infantry Formation. The enlistee salaries were projections of the cost that would have been incurred if all the 815 members were paid.

The Chairperson said there was something amiss in the entire situation, which probably was the reason the matter was under investigation by the BOI. The Committee would allow the process of the convening authority to conclude, and asked the Army to present the findings of the process to the Committee once it was concluded. Consequential management should be enacted against the people responsible for the unnecessary expenditure.

Mr Marais wanted to be sure if the matters he had raised would be dealt with in the report of the BOI.

Mr T Mmutle (ANC) wanted to know when the BOI investigation was anticipated to be concluded.

The Chairperson said the information requested by the Committee on the status of each of the 815 members would not be included in the waiting period for the conclusion of the BOI investigation.

Minister Modise said she also felt something was amiss when she received the report on the uMzimvubu matter. Although she understood that civilians wanted to help when they saw the extent of the situation, it was not wrong of them to do so, but the wrong people were the ones who had accepted them without explaining how the process worked.

She felt it would be easy to report back to the Committee on who was paid and who was not, because the Army said it was clear who had been told to go back home and the number of people who were paid. She did not see why that information should be held back from the Committee while the BOI concluded its investigation.

She said they were becoming a Department that always promised to act and did not act against people who did wrong things. “When you write and give an instruction for action and the people that you’ve instructed do not act on the instruction, there was no other action to take besides acting against those you have instructed,” she said. That course was difficult to take sometimes, especially when one was new to a department, but something needed to change because the DoD should not continue to have a reputation for not implementing consequence management.

She would report back by the end of the week to the Chairperson on when the BOI would complete its investigation, and told her Department that the list requested by the Committee must be made immediately with the comments requested by the Committee.

Cyber warfare strategy

Background

The Chairperson said it was reported in the 2018/19 financial year that the cyber warfare strategy was in the Departmental approval process. Its development started in the 2015/16 financial year when it was reported as a target to be met at the end of the financial year, but it had not been finalised for the next three financial years. The Department did not report on the strategy in the past financial year, and the Committee had assumed its establishment had finally been concluded.

The National Development Plan (NDP) addressed issues of cyber warfare and cybercrimes, but did not highlight any particular role for the DoD in cybersecurity. The National Cybersecurity Policy Framework (NCPF) highlighted the different roles and responsibilities of the organs of state and civil society, but primarily the DoD had the responsibility for coordination, accountability and implementation of cyber defence measures in the Republic, as being an integral part of its national defence mandate.

The last time the Department reported on the strategy, it had stated that the plan was yet to be finalised because it was still waiting for the broader cyber strategy to be finalised, and that the Cyber Command Centre would be operational as soon as the issue of budget constraints was dealt with in the Department.

The Committee felt it could not delay discussion on the matter, especially because various institutions in the country, including some of the major banks, had been hit by cybercrimes. This clearly called for levels of security approaches to be implemented, because "the war has shifted to the cyberspace and the SANDF cannot be found wanting.”

Briefing by DoD

Ms Kudjoe said the National Cyber Policy Forum assigned roles to different departments in terms of the roles they could play, and amongst those roles was the role that the DoD must play. The presentation would report on the progress in implementing the cyber defence strategy.

Brig Gen Mafi Mgobozi, Director: Cyber Command; SANDF, said the fifth domain of warfare -- cyber -- consisted of a boundless sphere of technology and artificial intelligence (electromagnetic spectrum), and was rapidly developing.

The prosperity and security of the nation were significantly enhanced by its use of cyberspace, but some developments had led to increased vulnerabilities and critical dependence on it, so it was imperative to consider as a priority the vital element of developing home-grown technologies and secure means of utilising the internet when it came to the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). 

Due to the intensity of the cyber threat landscape, the DoD was mandated by the NCPF to build a unified cyber command aimed at protecting the national critical information infrastructure. Defence Intelligence (DI) had to:

Create and staff a cyber command.
Pursue partners to obtain training, benchmarking standards and technology transfer, to capacitate the cyber command.
Develop a cyber defence strategy.

He said the cyber command was currently able to perform threat analysis, which involved the detection and identification of cyber threats; the development of a threats taxonomy to be able to predict possible threats; the monitoring of adversary trends' tools, techniques and procedures (TTPs); and supply chain emerging threats.

Maj Jabulani Sikhakhane said the Cyber Command faced the following challenges:

Infrastructure: Cyber Command needed a conducive infrastructure to accommodate a fully-fledged cyber command capability.
Funding (equipment, training, and personnel) was required. The procurement and maintenance of cyber equipment needed adequate funding, as most of the equipment, including software, was available abroad and depended on the dollar/rand exchange rate. Specialised cyber training was needed, as well as implementation of a military dispensation for cyber members.

Approval of the cyber defence strategy and structure was needed.

The Cyber Command was currently partially operational since it was not fully capacitated and adequate funding was needed while the Cyber Defence Strategy was under review.

Gen Mgobozi said the Cyber Command had recently moved from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) offices to the Defence Intelligence Headquarters, which had impacted some of the projects they wanted to implement.

Discussion

Mr Marais noticed several shortcomings in implementing the cyber defence strategy from the presentation, and said it should receive a much higher priority from the DoD. He was glad it was mentioned that cyber warfare was not only about hacking and threats to computers and information systems. The Defence Force should be able to use cyber capabilities for protection and monitoring reconnaissance and reporting in the future so that there could be a rapid response team to investigate possible transgressions.

There was not enough knowledge of what was happening in the land and the maritime borders, and that was where cyber capabilities needed to be prioritised for defence purposes. This force multiplier could assist the Defence Force tremendously to have a much more efficient use of its equipment and capabilities.

He wanted to know how and when the non-achievement of objective 2 (digitise the military) and objective 3 (Cyber-weaponise the DoD) would be addressed, and how planning was progressing in determining what was needed to achieve those objectives, considering that the budget was also an issue. He also wanted to know if other nations had been consulted for collaboration because countries could work together for protection, monitoring and reconnaissance. The Defence Force also needed to determine the kind of Cyber Command strategy infrastructure needed and how much it would cost, because it would help them prioritise what to include and what not to include.

The Chairperson said the last time the DoD briefed the Committee on the cyber warfare strategy was in March 2020. The Department had said it needed about R800 million over three years, which was the 2018 estimate to get the required cyber defence capability. However, the Department still had not fully implemented the strategy due to a lack of funds, and had not completed its strategic objectives since then, which suggested that little had been done over the years. He wanted to know how much had been set aside for the cyber warfare strategy, and whether the funding had improved since 2020.   

Mr Mmutle asked how far the DoD had moved in terms of the tiers of capabilities to match the international standards that they had presented in 2020 regarding the cyber warfare strategy, and to what extent they were selling their services to the private sector, because the sector might also be vulnerable to cybercrimes. How much was the Department investing in its research and development to keep its cyber capabilities up to date.

Responses

Gen Mgobozi said they were part of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC's) Defence sub-Committee on Cyber Security, where they engaged with other SADC countries to determine how they could cooperate and share information. They had not received the entire R800 million to implement the cyber defence strategy because of the budget cuts over the years, but they had managed to operate, using the little budget they had received.

He noted Mr Marais’ comment on the cyber capabilities on the land and maritime borders. He commented that they would look into how they could prioritise the issue further in the future.

Maj Sikhakhane said the implementation of objectives 2 and 3, as well as the prioritisation of cyber capabilities on the land and maritime borders, had been planned and costed, but the issue was the budget constraints. It was hard to find a person suitable to work in the cyber environment because they were people with unique capabilities who were rare to find.

The tiers involved defensive capabilities and personnel, collective capabilities and personnel, and authentic capabilities and personnel. Tier 1 was also affected by funding, because the development of personnel for campaigns was costly. 45 members had been trained to work on the Red Team in Tier 2, where they responded to threats and engaged any targets if necessary, but the campaign costs remained an issue. 

Ms Kudjoe, Secretary of Defence, said the mandate of the Defence Force was to protect and defend, so they were mandated to protect not only from a defensive point of view, but also to defend the state and its economy. The power of cyber security was that it was capable of bringing down economies of countries if they were not properly protected, which was why it must be looked at from the point of view of business continuity, because if they were hacked and unable to recover, they would not be able to continue their work.

She said it was important to invest in skills development, because even if the hardware was available, it would be impossible to manage it without the skilled personnel. The DoD had concluded that the project needed to be run nationally because each government department would have to buy its own hardware for cyber security, which would cost much more. The Ministers of the Justice cluster had decided that they would find money to consolidate what the major role players needed and acquire the hardware that would feed into every department. They would each know what their roles were in cyber defence.   

She agreed that they needed to invest in research, development and innovation, because it would not be wise to be in cyberspace and not be bespoke, because being bespoke would mean that they would be able to develop their own methods and improve on them. With the right resources available, the Department could innovate and possibly sell its innovations to other countries in the future. Even when the Department decided to digitise, it had to do so through an integrated system that was replicable so that no one would even know if something wrong had happened, because the disaster recovery system would have reacted quickly.  

The Chairperson said that the Committee would wrap up the discussion with the understanding that for the cyber capability to be operational, it required a considerable financial injection, and appealed to the DoD to consider funding the objective considerably. 

Minister Modise said there was no way the country could continue thinking it could protect itself and be active in the cyber space without networking with the other countries in the region. The country needed to collaborate and coordinate with institutions of higher learning, and invest in its cyber security. Unfortunately, the United States of America and China were squeezing South Africa, which affected its agility. South Africa would develop its cyber security strategy and activities within the ambit of the African Union (AU), as it was duty-bound to do.

Strategic plan to reduce HR costs

The Chairperson requested that the presentation focus on the slides that spoke to the DoD's current HR strength, the numbers that would bring the Department within its allocation, and what it would take to get to that level. R1 billion had been allocated to the Department. If they did not spend it in the current financial year, they would not receive the R800 million in the next financial year, so the money needed to be spent. They would need to prove that it was spent in a manner that would allow them to save money to remain within the allocation.

The Secretary of Defence said the presentation would give the progress that had been made and the measures taken by the Department to reduce the HR cost, which was the only area where it was overspending. The Department had been allocated R1.8 billion, which meant they had R1 billion in the current financial year to utilise for the implementation of the exit mechanism, and the remaining R800 million would be for the following financial year.

The R800 million would be allocated to the DoD, subject to them being able to deliver on the current financial year. The R1 billion was a commitment from Treasury, and the Department would have to find about R865 million within its budget, taking into account the benefits that would be paid to the members that would be exiting, so the total amount would be R1.865 billion.

Maj Gen Katoki Motlhabane, Deputy Chief Human Resources, SANDF, introduced the presentation and handed over to Brig Gen Kevin Richards, Director: Strategy and Planning, to proceed, as the Secretary of Defence had already introduced the background of the presentation.

Brig Gen Richards said that on 3 February 2021, the Portfolio Committee had been briefed on the course of action to curb HR cost pressures by the Department. A consensus was reached for the Department to implement HR cost saving measures. The Minister of Defence issued a Ministerial Directive to reduce the HR cost pressures over the 2021 medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) and the medium term strategic framework (MTSF) in March 2021.

As from 1 April 2021, the DoD had started implementing HR interventions to curb costs and had shifted focus to:

An average planned HR strength of 73 000 over the MTEF, recruiting a military skills development system intake every alternate calendar year;
Reducing Reserve Force mandates to 1 990 259, capping annual increases of regimental and operational allowances, and allowances paid in lieu of scarce skills retention; andReactivating the implementation of exit strategies, such as the Mobility Exit Mechanism (MEM) and the Employee Initiated Severance Package (EISP).

As of 31 July 2022, the challenges faced by the Department in reducing the HR cost pressures included the utilisation of the Reserve Force Mandates for the period of 1 April to 31 July 2022, which resulted in its inability to meet its planned reductions. There were increased HR capacity requirements to support military operations, including meeting the administrative compliance obligations of the DoD and the SANDF to continue to assure protection services at military installations.

Administrative delays in implementing exit strategies (MEM and EISP) were also evident in the first quarter, and the second and third quarter performances were expected to increase the pace of separation. Based on the expenditure in the 2021/22 financial year, a saving of approximately R30 million had been achieved, and up to R67 million was projected to be achieved in the 2022/23 financial year.

Discussion

The Chairperson said the DoD had 73 987 employees on 1 April 2020, there had been 777 appointments and transfers into the Department, and there had been 2 565 terminations and transfers, but it had still overspent its budget by close to R2 billion. He asked what number would help them remain within the budget allocation.

Mr Marais said Treasury had not given additional funding to the Department, and it was unlikely that they would, and its challenges were being exacerbated. He wanted to know how much strength the Department would need to keep within the approved budget in the current financial year. Looking at the first quarter, it was unlikely that the Department would end up with 2.7 million mandates and would probably reach up to three million Reserve Force mandates by the end of the financial year.  

The problem would continue if there was no additional funding for non-budgeted deployments and projects. The President must allow additional funds from National Treasury for any non-budgeted deployments and projects in the future so that there would not be any problems. The fact that the 1 494 soldiers were deployed in Mozambique for a full year would have a major impact on the Reserve Force and the cost of employees (CoE), which had to be factored into the plan; otherwise, the Department would be fooling itself.

He said the current year’s budget was R1 billion and next year R800 million, but it seemed that only R868 million would be taken out in the current financial year. He wanted to know why people were not taking up the MEM, and asked if the Department already knew how many people it would take up in the next financial year.

Mr Mmutle wanted to know if the Department had engaged National Treasury to ensure that there was a condonement regarding the irregular expenditure it was expecting to incur due to the deployment of its forces, because as much as it was reasonable for them to execute their responsibility, it would not be acceptable to have irregular expenditure whilst under pressure to perform well.

The Chairperson said the Department planned to utilise the Reserve Force to the tune of 1 990 259 mandates, but it had exceeded the number by 218 238 mandates due to the July unrest, and he asked why that was an issue when there was a separate allocation of funds for the additional mandates.

Responses

The Secretary of Defence said the MEM was a severance package that was DoD-initiated, and there were uncertainties regarding the current economic situation in the country, which was a big contributor to employees not wanting to take up the package. The employees were unsure that the severance package they would receive from the Department would help them survive after exiting.

The Department conducted information briefs alongside the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), where employees were provided with a full package of information that would assist them in deciding. She assured the Committee that there was movement in getting the employees to consider the MEM, as a considerable number of them had applied.

Gen Richards said the question of the HR strength needed by the Department was difficult to answer, because it depended on the context of the evolving threat to the sovereignty of South Africa. The question could not be answered because when looking at the projections from the end of the current financial year until the end of the 2025/26 financial year, the allocation varied between the financial years, which meant that the strength required for each of the financial years differed. An answer to the question could be given only if the allocation was constant, and if that was the case, then the number for this financial year would be 68 000 employees.

The strength was defined by the security scenario that South Africa required for the SANDF to conduct military operations. It also took into account unplanned and unforeseen tasks that were not part of the initial plan, nor the allocation appropriated by government. National Treasury did not reimburse the Department for the unplanned and unforeseen expenditure, including the forecast utilisation of reserve forces beyond the planned number.

He said the unplanned and unfunded operations accounted for almost R500 million, which had to be added to the forecast deficit of the CoE. The Department had submitted an exit strategy to the National Treasury, which included R1 billion for the current financial year and R800 million in the next financial year, and the number forecast for the next financial year was 61 500 soldiers to be identified. The R800 million was a conditional grant based on the Department’s performance in the current financial year, and the Department was confident that it could execute it.

It was expected that after implementing the HR interventions, the Department would submit an application to National Treasury for condonement for the irregular expenditure dating from 2017/18 to the current financial year, and the condonation amount was estimated to be around R12.9 billion. The Department was looking forward to this, because in the last engagement on 4 October 2021, it was assured that the current application was available, subject to their performance in the current financial year.  

The Chairperson asked if it was possible for the Department to share information with the Committee on the unfunded and underfunded deployments, including the expenditure that had been made. He also asked how the Department was implementing its exit strategy and whether it had identified people and encouraged them to consider taking the severance package, or if it had opened the option to every employee. If succession planning had been included in the exit plan, it would have helped the Department decide on who to let go and who to not let go, and protect them from losing the skills crucial to its success.

Mr Marais said it was important to know that the Department was letting go of people it could afford to let go of and was not losing the expertise it would need in the future. He wanted to know whether it had been communicated to the President and the Minister of Finance that the DoD could not perform deployments and operations without additional funding.

The Secretary of Defence said that previously, when the Department assessed the people who were exiting, it discovered that it had exited the people who had the required skills. The Minister at the time had decided to suspend the MEM and asked the Department to assess how it would go about exiting people without losing operational effectiveness, and that was how the employer-initiated process of the MEM was developed, as it helped the Department ensure that it retained the skills that it required to continue operating effectively.

In the current MEM exit strategy, the Department had focused on career management, and most of the people it had identified to exit were those it deemed as having no prospects to progress in their current positions. It had also decided that while they were still in the Department’s system, they would transfer the skills to people who would take over from them if necessary, so there was succession planning included in the plan, as they also looked at the skills that they would need in the future. Initially, the Department had considered people between the ages of 53 to 57 for exiting, but the exiting age had since been shifted to 58 years because there were people who were willing to exit at that age.

The Chairperson said if the process was employer-initiated, it would go at the pace of the employer and not at the pace of the people who wanted to exit. Even if the process had been employee-initiated, it would still not be mutually exclusive because employers could also use the process to target the people they wanted to offload from the system. When that happened, the process would have baggage, because people would feel targeted.

He said if the process was opened up for the employees to also be able to volunteer themselves for the exits, then the process would be baggage free. He foresaw the Committee blaming the Department in the future because they had used a slow exiting process, and asked the Secretary of Defence to clarify how the DoD viewed the process.

The Secretary of Defence said even though the process was employer-initiated, the employees still had a right to dispute their selection for the exiting, especially if they believed they possessed the skills that the institution needed. They could offer to have an understudy to transfer the skills. It was a process that was properly thought through, and the people willing to exit on their own were also evaluated.

One of the challenges in the Department was that in the lower levels, tens of thousands of private soldiers were in their 50s and were probably not sure of their future in the Department. The Department was also looking at refining that system to rejuvenate and bring in younger people who would grow within the system.

From a process point of view, the R1 billion was an amount that the Department would have to deal with by 31 March 2023, because 1 April would be the start of the new financial year. The Department had started looking internally to see where it would find the R868 million that would be its liability to deal with the benefits that would be exiting. The R1 billion would afford it the ability to exit 600 members, and it was on course to deliver on that exit plan.

On the reconciliation after deployment, she said they could go back as far back as three years to give the Committee statistics for Operation Mistral, Vikela, and Chariot. She would forward the information to the Committee. If there was a solution for the CoE, the Department would have implemented it because there was an HR plan which was necessitated because the CoE was the only area in which the Department was overspending, and just as everybody was buying into it, there were cuts on the CoE.

There could not be a straightforward answer to the CoE issue because the DoD was a task-driven Department and some of its deployments were never planned. The Department would have to continue paying allowances as long as people were deployed on the ground. Before the HR plan, the Department had 2.6 million mandates that were planned for and it was asked to reduce them to 1.9 million, but as of 31 March 2021, there were about 3.2 million. This meant that asking the Department to cut its mandates was not right because when Treasury cut the budget, they also cut CoE and the boots on the ground, which made it extra difficult because the HR budget was already cut.

The Chairperson appreciated the explanation provided by the Secretary of Defence and said it would help the Committee to assist the Department by advocating for them to National Treasury because although part of the over-expenditure that was normally reported against the Department was occasioned by the unfunded mandates, which would be unfair to attribute as an over expenditure against the Department.

He noted that the R1 billion would only allow the Department the ability to release only 600 employees, which meant the R800 million in the next financial year would probably allow them the ability to release less than 600 employees. The combined amount for the two financial years would allow them to release just over a thousand employees in total. He said the Committee would monitor the expenditure and the exit mechanism, but the exit mechanism must be a two way stream, with the employee and the employer having a say on the matter.

Minister Modise said the first big group of the exodus in the Department was employees who volunteered to leave. Many came with recommendations to the Minister that they could not be allowed to exit because of their essential skills. What worried her about the MEM was that they could not target the lower ranking employees even though there was a huge bulge than in the top ranking employees.

She said there was a strange situation in South Africa where the Directors-General and officials would meet alone and discuss and make decisions on behalf of the executives. It was unfair for the administration to say Operation Vikela would not be funded. The Department had disputed that decision and the Minister had promised National Treasury that the Department would present a costed plan on how the Department planned to move forward and how much it would cost, but she had not confirmed the meeting because she could not get the costed plan, which she would have presented.

She said the DoD needed to enter into mini-contracts with other departments as they were deployed to recoup some funds. If it did not enter into these contracts, it would not receive its money from the other departments. The CoE was not going to be addressed until the DoD admitted that it had policy issues. She would take responsibility for breaking down the DoD budget to try and understand how it was put together. It was problematic to have a Department that brought a budget that it could not explain.

The DoD should look at both sides when exiting its employees, because it is currently looking at the uniform side. It had to agree with Parliament on the ratios between the civilian side and the military side, and then slim them down accordingly, ensuring that it did not lose the essential skills and services that it needed, and those who remained and the incoming recruits would be sharpened so that the Department would move on an upwards trajectory”.  

The Minister would be happy if the Department could employ a civilian specialising in human resources, because the insertion of that resource would help it to have a different outlook on how things were happening within it. It needed to be critical about how it used its reserves, because they should be given more opportunities for deployment instead of the call-ups. 

The Chairperson thanked the DoD and SANDF for their honest responses to the Committee’s questions and noted that the Committee would monitor the implementation of the exit mechanism and the expenditure of the Department. The reconciliation at the end of the financial year would give the Committee a picture of where the DoD would be standing in terms of the planned strength, as well as the success of the exit mechanism.

He asked when the Department would submit its annual report, because the Committee was expecting to receive a briefing from the Auditor General (AG) next week, but the AG would not be able to present to the Committee if the DoD’s annual report was not tabled by then.

The Secretary of Defence said the annual report had been tabled on Tuesday.

The Chairperson thanked the Minister and the Secretary of Defence for being part of the discussion, and said it had been very fruitful. He also thanked the Deputy Minister and the delegations from the DoD and SANDF for availing themselves for the meeting. He added that the presentation on the fourth quarter performance would be moved to the next meeting due to time constraints. 

The meeting was adjourned.
 

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