Thank you, Chairperson.
In fact, the intention from our leadership was to ask more questions than answer questions. I thought maybe today it was our day, but I will attempt to answer some questions, and our members will also respond to some questions. I will also request that they, at some point, be given an opportunity to ask questions.
Let me start with the issue of the minister's intervention on the estimate of our expenditures, the E and E. In our case, the accounting officer, who is the DG, whom we call the secretary for defence, is the accountable officer. He is the person who will come to present the budget at the beginning of the financial year in the committee, and we'll vote on that budget. Coupled with that he will have to present a strategic plan for the department so that we may link the financials to the objectives.
On that basis, the committee will sit on its own after the presentation and check on whether they agree with the budget and will vote on it. Then it will be processed through the National Assembly.
The role of the minister becomes a political role, not necessarily the accounting role; hence the minister, in our case, will answer questions in the chamber, not necessarily in the committee. He does come to brief the committee on specific issues that the committee has identified. But because we avoid at all costs micro-managing the department, we avoid that kind of interaction except to ask specific questions in the chamber. The only time the minister will come is maybe when meeting to present the bills to us. The briefings we get from government officials, in most cases.
In terms of issues of transparency, a member has said that opposition parties will have to have a direct link with departments. In our case, we try to minimize the interaction, so that it is an organized interaction. Members of Parliament have an opportunity to raise issues in the portfolio committee, which we process through the office of the Speaker to the department for answers. In that manner, we are able to have information at our table in a channelled way and avoid unnecessary debate in the committee, which we can confirm.
I want to cite an example. If a member of Parliament says to me, “Chair, I have interacted with the department on the statistics and I want us to discuss this,” I will not have a basis of discussion, because I will not have seen those statistics on any matter. It will be better if the member is in the portfolio committee; then we'll compile the statistics from the department and enter the discussion. That's how we operate in South Africa.
On the issue of the peacekeeping mission, I will reserve comment for now, because we still want to interact more on that one.
In terms of integration, yes, the South African Defence Force, which was SADF, was disintegrated, and an integration process established around an African lifestyle defence force where, as you will know, in terms of policy we wanted the SANDF to have civil leadership, where you integrate civilians into the force. We were able to integrate the liberation movements into the South African National Defence Force, including some members of the South African Defence Force.
We integrated after 1994. We have a force that is professional—it's not based on conscription—and hence we have established the South African Military Academy, where we rejuvenate our force on a regular basis. That is linked to the University of Stellenbosch, which has prepared more youths to be students.
I also do not want to get deeper into that, because it's one of our intentions to look at the model from this side. Let me also allow members of Parliament to respond.
Mr. Oupa Ephraim Monareng.