Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

South Africa's troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were demoralised, one of their commanders told a group of visiting parliamentarians on Friday.

Apart from problems with the payment of allowances and the replacement of old tents in the field, stretched supply lines were making logistics difficult, complained national contingent commander Colonel Zukile Mpapela.

"Some of my troops are 2,000km from me and it takes a month to get critical equipment to them," he said

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) procurement policy was also hampering his division's effectiveness.

Mapela said he was making these points because the committee "has the power to open the purses".

Anything South Africa spent was reimbursed by the United Nations (UN), he said. Conditions were hard at the best of times without having to fight for supplies.

Parliament's committee on defence, which is in the DRC on an oversight mission, visited the UN base in Kindu, where South Africa's troops have seen action against armed militias opposed to the transitional government of Joseph Kabila.

"The area is densely forested with ambush risks," Mpapela told them, adding that the few dirt roads were also often impassable during the rainy season.

Mapela said that while his combat soldiers were deployed as a rapid reaction force in hot-spots, his engineers were responsible for building airfields at Goma and Beni, and maintaining ferry and water purification operations.

Their main objectives were to stop the killing and facilitate political transition of the DRC.

Defending allegations of sexual misconduct against his troops, Mapela said: "Any relationship with the Congolese is termed sexual exploitation and abuse just because we have dollars in our pockets and they have nothing."

The UN told the parliamentarians on Wednesday that the SANDF had committed 26 percent of all substantiated sexual misconduct claims in the DRC.

The UN had since imposed a 6pm curfew for soldiers to be back in barracks and was advocating celibacy for all troops in the DRC.

South Africa needed to review its policies to avoid clashing with the UN over the fraternising of troops with the local population, said the leader of the parliamentary committee, Mnyamezeli Booi.

He said the White Paper on peacekeeping was also being reviewed to avoid creating a demoralised force.

"If we as politicians don't familiarise ourselves with the problems and the policies, then we will be destroying our own force and get shouted at from the people back home," he said.