The re-tabled 2025 budget vote, delivered by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana on Wednesday 21 May, has seen the Department of Defence (DoD) allocated an additional R1.2 billion for the withdrawal of soldiers from the Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC).
The revised 2025/26 defence budget now stands at R57.1 billion, versus R55.9 billion in February’s draft budget. Long-term spending plans have changed as well, with a reduction to take into account money not being spent on SAMIDRC. The new budget allocates defence R56 billion in 2026/27 (R58.5 billion in the old budget) and R59.1 billion for 2027/28 (R60.6 billion in the old budget).
In February, Godongwana said over the three-year medium term, R5 billion was allocated to the Department of Defence to support South Africa’s participation in SAMIDRC and to supplement existing peace keeping activities, but these spending plans changed following the 13 March termination of the mission following the deaths of over a dozen SADC soldiers in fighting around Goma and Sake.
In his budget speech on Wednesday, Godongwana announced “reconfiguring funding for the troop deployment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is in light of the announcement of South Africa’s phased withdrawal from the East African country. In this regard, the R5 billion we had proposed to allocate to the Department of Defence for its participation in the SADC mission in the DRC is reduced.” The subsequently reduced amount “will cover the immediate costs of an orderly and safe withdrawal of our troops and mission equipment.”
There are slight changes to SANDF spending. For example, R113 billion of the R173 billion defence budget over the next three years will go to the compensation of employees (65%), versus R115 billion of R175 billion for the February budget. And instead of cutting 4 000 personnel through early retirement to save money, the DoD now plans to exit at least 2 200 eligible members over the next two years.
Defence expert Dean Wingrin noted that the defence budget is approximately 0.78% of GDP and that the real increase in defence funding after inflation, from 2024/25 to 2025/26, is only 0.21%, meaning the budget is flat in real terms. Military inflation is even more.
“This limited real growth constrains the SANDF’s ability to even maintain capabilities, never mind expand,” he stated. “It also highlights the ongoing squeeze between strategic commitments and fiscal realities, suggesting that any significant new operational demands would require either reprioritisation or additional allocations outside the current framework.”
According to Wingrin, the revised budget also shows sharp cuts to Force Employment allocations for 2026/27 and 2027/28, as a result of future drawdowns in operations (SADC and UN missions in the DRC).
The SANDF, meanwhile, continues to shoulder significant strategic responsibilities, including border protection (of over 4 471 km of South Africa’s border); support to the South African Police Service (elections, power stations, illegal miners, etc.); and regional peacekeeping (UN in the DRC). “Thus, a real mismatch between mandate and means,” Wingrin said.
The flat budget cannot offset rising costs in logistics, fuel, tech, etc. Unavoidable costs can only be addressed through mid-year adjustments or reallocation from other programmes, he warned.
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