Defence committee questions effectiveness of SANDF in helping to curb illegal mining

CAPE TOWN - As illegal mining once again captures headlines - this time in Stilfontein in the North West, Parliament’s joint standing committee on defence on Friday questioned the effectiveness of the defense force in helping to curb illegal mining.

There's been heated debate about President Cyril Ramaphosa's decision earlier in November to extend the deployment of soldiers to support the SA Police Service in combatting illegal mining, as part of Operation Prosper, for another five months.

The deployment comes at a cost of more than R140 million, which the committee has heard is not budgeted for.

The joint standing committee on defence on Friday held their very first meeting after a protracted battle between the African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) over who should chair the committee.

Right off the bat, the committee was faced with the weighty matter of illegal mining and the role of the defence force in Operation Prosper.

While political parties have not disagreed on the need to extend the deployment of 1,100 soldiers for a third term until the end of March, 
they said it's important to know whether the operation was having the desired effect.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)'s Virgill Gericke: "If we could not win the battle up until now, certainly you need to shift into another gear to protect those communities."

The SANDF's head of joint operations, Lieutenant-General Siphiwe Sangweni said he believes there’s been a measure of success.

"There's progress. There has been a reduction since the beginning [of the operation], so that informed us to be able to reduce [the number of soldiers]."

The committee has requested a detailed report from the SANDF on the success of this operation.