JOHANNESBURG – No prior parliamentary approval is required for President Cyril Ramaphosa to deploy the South African National Defence (SANDF) troops.
This is according to Defence Analyst Dean Wingrin, who says Ramaphosa can decide when to deploy the SANDF troops. This after questions were raised after SANDF troops marched into Gauteng suburbs on Wednesday.
“The Constitution and the Defence Act make provision for this. Only once he’s decided and deployed is he then required to notify Parliament promptly and with details on the nature of the operations, the time frame and expected costs,” said Dean Wingrin.
“The deployment can be debated normally via the joint committees on Defence and while generally Parliament has oversight of this deployment, there is no requirement for prior approval or for Parliament to approve post deployment.”
Last month during his State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa announced the SANDF would be deployed to crime-ridden areas in Gauteng, Western Cape and Eastern Cape under “Operation Prosper”.
While the deployment has been widely welcomed by residents in the crime-ridden areas, Wingrin said it was indicative of the police’s failure in their duties.
“The fact that the acting minister of police has said they can’t do this without the defence force shows you the degraded state the SAPS are in that they cannot tackle this by themselves and have to rely on the SANDF for personnel and people on the ground.”
Wingrin said while the flooding of manpower will put a lid on common crimes in the affected areas, if the deployment is not part of a holistic and strategic plan, once the troops leave, the levels of crime will return.
“We saw that in Cape Town in 2019 and prior to that where the SANDF was called into the gang-infested areas, gang activity declined but as soon as the troops withdrew, it just returned to its previous levels.”