The National Treasury on Tuesday blamed some of the government’s policy decisions and low economic growth for the declining budget allocation of the Department of Defence.
However, it said despite the pressure on the budget, there were certain areas where the department could do better to realise value for money and have efficiencies in its operations.
Briefing the defence portfolio committee, National Treasury’s Mashudu Bidzha said the country’s slow economic growth meant that the resources that the economy generated for government spending had been inadequate since 2009.
Bidzha noted that the country’s spending on debt service cost has been the largest spending component over the years.
“In the last financial year we spent R356 billion on debt service costs.
“This spending has outstripped spending on police, health, social protections and education.”
The requests for bailouts and debt takeovers for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have cost the fiscus R520.6bn over the past decade.
Bidzha told the MPs that shifting funds to bailouts was the policy decision of the previous administrations, not the National Treasury.
“There were policy choices of successive administrations since 2008 and those choices did indeed impact on funding allocation for the defence force.”
The security cluster suffered significant reductions totalling R71bn between 2016-17 and 2022-23.
Bidzha said one of the issues they were grappling with was the permanent pressure of the compensation of employees. There is also the issue of long and open-ended peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
However, Bidzha said the department had been allowed to retain revenue from its participation in the DRC.
He observed that although the personnel headcount was declining, the expenditure on employees was increasing, as was irregular expenditure.
“The Department of Defence incurred unauthorised expenditure of R2.9 billion in 2022-23 and R3.5bn in 2023-24.”
Committee chairperson Dakota Legoete said there was a need to arrest the decline in the budget allocation.
ANC MP Mzikayise Hala noted with concern that the government’s policy choices left the department where it was.
DA MP Maliyakhe Shelembe said the National Treasury’s presentation posed a question whether the defence force was spending money wisely.
“The GDP is declining. We need to consider how we save the money,” Shelembe said.
MK Party’s Mzikayise Ntshingila also called for accountability within the department.
Deputy Minister Bantu Holomisa said they would prioritise some of the requirements for the defence force, especially those related to boots, uniforms and transport.
Cape Times