The Army will be among us for a long time, experts say

Troops are likely to be on the streets for the rest of the year as Covid-19 infections soar, with experts saying it was only logical for President Cyril Ramaphosa, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, to extend the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) disaster deployment.

In a letter dated 25 March, Ramaphosa informed Speaker of the National Assembly Thandi Modise the SANDF was given orders to be deployed from 26 March to 26 June.

The current deployment of about 2,800 troops to preserve life, health or property in emergency or humanitarian relief operations in terms of the Defence Act expires at midnight on Friday.

“Most likely it won’t be allowed to lapse. My understanding is that it is already the intention to extend it until the end of the year,” African Defence Review director Darren Olivier said yesterday.

He said Ramaphosa could authorise an extension of the SANDF deployment without parliament approval but said this should be done within seven days.

According to Olivier, Section 18 of the Defence Act provided certain timelines, for instance that parliament, within seven days of receiving the letter from the president, must decide on the deployment.

“Ramaphosa can deploy [the SANDF] without parliament approval. The principle is that during an emergency there is no time … parliament can decide if it carries on, or to stop it. It is legal until parliament stops it,” he said.

Olivier, however, said the Act was “questionable” because it only stated that the president must seek approval “promptly”. He said, in essence, the president had seven days to inform parliament of the deployment and that parliament had seven days to decide on the deployment.

Olivier said it was also important to understand that the Defence Act, Section 18 and 19, were to do with the employment of the defence force.

“Employment is not quite the same as deployment. What it means is that they are authorised to be used. An employment is essentially an authorisation for deployment and not a deployment in itself.

“For example, the president might authorise 10,000 troops but 5,000 might be deployed,” he explained.

According to defence expert Helmoed-Römer Heitman, Ramaphosa wrote a second letter to parliament, informing the speaker that the entire force, 73,000 or so, would be on standby. He said this did not mean they would all be deployed, but that this was to ensure he had everybody available in case of a crisis and did not need to seek approval from parliament.

Heitman said he had learnt that to do this, the president had to submit the actual names of those deployed and where they are to be deployed.

He said calling up the entire force on standby avoided this administrative hurdle, while the most logical thing to do, in the face of increasing infections, was to extend the blanket deployment by another month or two months.

“That is why they said we are going to put the whole force on standby. It does not mean they were going to call everybody.

“It meant all troops were available. Let’s say some troops become infected. What do you do then? You have to replace them, but have to get certain permission for that.

“The blanket [deployment] is important because it leaves that authorisation in place, just in case. But it would require another letter from the president to extend and can be done retrospectively,” Heitman said.

He said it was logical to have the full capability of the defence force available so that, in case of a major crisis, there were military health service personnel available for the sick, engineers for provision of critical services and ordinary troops for pushing and carrying … without having to ask for permission.

Siphiwe Dlamini, SANDF spokesperson, referred queries to Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Sangoni, who could not be reached.

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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