Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

DEFENCE Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Friday that South Africa's commit ments to peacekeeping and peacemaking on the continent mean the South African National Defence Force will need more money.

This, he said, would become even more important when the Southern African Development Community Mutual Defence Pact is signed in August, paving the way for the creation of the African Standby Force as a permanent military force for the continent.

Addressing Parliament on Friday, Lekota said that, as the biggest economy in the SADC region, South Africa would have to carry much responsibility for the new regional force. He said defence ministers in the SADC region had resolved all issues delaying the signing of the defence pact and that he was confident this would be done at the next regional heads of state summit in August.

"Parliament and the electorate must remember that each of the state parties participating in collective security do so in keeping with what resources they possess," Lekota said.

He warned that South Africa's increased regional commitments, which have seen it deploying peacekeeping units in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, were putting a strain on his department's budget.

"We are deploying twice as many members of the SANDF than was anticipated in the defence review, while our budget, as anticipated in the same review, has not been met," he said.

The defence department was allocated R20.05 -billion for 2003-04. While this marks an increase from last financial year's budget, Lekota said it was not enough as it meant South Africa had allocated only 1.62% of its gross domestic product and 6.7% of government expenditure to defence.

"This should be compared with countries such as Nigeria, which also plays an important role in the peace mission and spends 4.5% of its GDP on defence.

"Our neighbour Botswana allocates 5.4% of GDP to defence and our sister country Namibia spends 6.3% on defence," Lekota said.

In terms of the African Union's approach to setting up a pan-African military force to deal with the continent's conflicts, each regional bloc must form its own pact and these will be pulled together to form an African body.

With the West African region already far ahead because of its regional armed force that has existed for more than a decade, it is now up to regions like the SADC to follow suit for the AU's dream to become reality.

Lekota told Parliament that discussions about the formation of the continental standby force were at an advanced stage and that consensus had been reached already on issues such as the proposed force's link to AU structures, the creation of permanent regional headquarters and similar training for military personnel.

African National Congress MP and chair man of the parliamentary committee on defence Thandi Modise said some of the problems that plagued the defence force during the difficult post-1994 integration era could have been avoided had the state provided enough resources to the army.

Modise warned that South Africa would be unable to fulfil its constitutional mandate and its continental obligations without more money.

"The question is, can South Africa afford to deploy effectively, efficiently and rapidly to the region and to the rest of the continent without leaving the republic vulnerable?

"When we look back at the September 11 events, can we continue to hold onto the belief that the traditional threat analysis and identification period of five or 15 years is enough to rely on or should we do what the Constitution tells us to do?" she asked.