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The department of defence says its efforts to establish a sexual offences investigating structure are being scuppered by inadequate funding from the treasury and its inability to retain skilled investigators.
The department told committee members on 4 May that it would redirect portions of its annual budget to establish the investigating structure in an effort to combat gender-based violence and rape committed by defence force members.
An investigation by the auditor general into the department’s records — presented before parliament’s portfolio committee for military veterans — found that a lack of accountability and consequence management is rife. Additionally, positions including in the military police for investigations and legal personnel, who are key in the areas of accountability, have not been filled.
All this means the department’s ambition to establish investigations into cases of gender-based violence by members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is being held back,.
Sexual asault in the defence force undermines the department’s message on its commitment to a “zero tolerance attitude toward violence and sexual abuse against women, youth and people with disabilities”.
A 2019 Mail & Guardian investigation found that troops sexually assaulted other members of the defence force, as well as civilians while on duty on the peacekeeping mission, Operation Mistral, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The M&G investigation into a leaked 2019 defence force report showed that its culture was steeped in institutional gender-based violence. The report found that women were at a much higher risk of sexual harassment than men.
A report by the department said that by the end of 2021, women in the defence force were far outnumbered by male colleagues, accounting for only 31%.
Operation Mistral is conducted in conjunction with the United Nations. The reports of sexual crimes committed by South African troops in the DRC were made to the UN. According to the leaked defence force document, the UN “considered withdrawing SANDF permanently”.
The defence force’s dependence on the UN and operations in Africa is evident in the 2022-23 budget. When asked whether spending money on troops in DRC and Mozambique remains critical, SANDF accounting officer Isabel Mashitoa said that Operation Mistral brings money back into the department.
“When we knew we were going to deploy […] the treasury certified this expense. It had to be split between Operation Vikela and Mistral. They do have an impact. When reimbursed by the UN, the money goes to the treasury. We should be fighting for this money to be redirected to DOD [department of defence],” she said.
In addition to a history of rampant sexual abuse in the army, turning a blind eye to unethical acts such as fraud and corrupton adds to the internal culture of the department .
In 2019, then defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula commissioned an external investigation into cases of sexual assault in the army. She said her reasoning for looking outside of the department was that she did not have confidence that the military would “provide me with satisfactory reports, given that you have been aware of these and turned a blind eye”.
This year, when confronted with the prevalence of untraced spending and unlawful contracts in the department, the auditor general’s office did not accept that the reason for the lack of consequences and the inability to carry out key tasks was because the department did not receive enough funding — especially given that R1.5-billion is still unaccounted for in its budget.
The co-chairperson of parliament’s portfolio committee for military veterans, Cyril Xaba, said the defence force could not use a lack of funding as an excuse for its inability to perform, which was patently a result of poor financial management.
Treasury allocates R49-billion
The treasury allocated R49-billion to the department for 2022-23, with R21-billion going to the defence force’s operations, including combating gender-based violence and femicide and the continuous deployment of troops in the DRC.
Despite confirmed reports of troops committing acts of sexual exploitation and assault in the DRC as recent as May 2019, deployment to that country is still considered critical enough by the department to warrant continuous financial support.
A 2021 M&G report into the culture of sexual abuse in the SANDF found that there was no central register to keep track of “problem soldiers”.
All this prompted Democratic Alliance MP Sarel Marais to urge the department to prioritise its budget for South African issues, ahead of operations in the DRC.
“We can’t keep ‘stealing from Peter to pay Paul’ and think the money will still be there. The money is running out,” said Marais.
“We have to find somewhere in the budget for everything. There is never additional funding but we have to find it in the budget. We have to reprioritise; if it’s not critical why is it still included and redirected to in the budget?”
Mashitoa said budget cuts were increasing and yet the department was expected to do more with less. “As a department, we are not able to do long term planning. There is an affordable level of ambition that is funded. You are right, it is a matter of stealing from Peter to pay Paul.”
Economic Freedom Fighters legislator Tseko Mafanya was critical of the department’s inability to reprioritise funding for investigations into missing funds and gender-based violence, adding that he was concerned that the defence force could barely afford to maintain SANDF sites.
“It’s mind-boggling. It becomes a problem when you allude to a reduction to formal training when you are not even equipped to address serious matters,” he said.
The department of defence did not respond to queries despite multiple efforts by the Mail & Guardian.
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