19 Apr 2022

Troops deployed in the SADC mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) are entitled to three basic allowances, Minister of Defence, Justice and Security Mr Kagiso Mmusi  has informed Parliament.

Responding to a question Wednesday, Minister Mmusi said the three allowances included Foreign Deployment Allowance (FDA), which was paid in line with existing policies and regulations of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF).

Secondly, he said married service members were entitled to Family Allowance for the entire duration of the mission.

Thirdly, he said SAMIM was funded on a cost-sharing basis between Personnel Contributing Countries (PCC) and SADC, thus SADC pledged to pay Mission Support Allowance (MSA) to deployed troops.

Mr Mmusi further informed Parliament that all the allowances that were due to deployed troops from the government had been paid while some amounts due from SADC were still outstanding.

He explained that the first BDF Contingent to SAMIM consisted of 298 troops and the FDA was paid to this group at a rate of 25 per cent of the host country’s per diem allowance as provided for in BDF Circulars No.144 of 1998 and No.89 of 2001, because they were provided with food and encamped.

The individuals, he said were paid a monthly Foreign Deployment Allowance of about P21 400 per person over a period of six months, making a total of over P128 800 with government paying out an overall of over P38 million to pay all BDF members deployed under SAMIM 1 as per their deployment days.

Regarding the Family Allowance, he said a total of P525 000 had been paid to 173 qualifying personnel, explaining that as per the BDF Act, a spouse for a deployed member was paid P627.40 per month while each child below 21 years was paid P67.95.

He said in total, the amount spent by government on Foreign Deployment Allowance and Family Allowance amounted to over P41 million for the six months period.

Minister Mmusi explained that the SADC Mission Support Allowance (MSA) had not been fully paid to members as the country received only over P16 million from SADC as part of payment of the MSA.

“As at Monday April 11, 2022, an average of P38 000 was paid out to each member, calculated on the number of days an individual spent at SAMIM,” he said.

The minister also explained that the delay to pay out the SADC MSA to members was due to the necessary reconciliatory process and subsequent observations on discrepancies of the amounts due against those remitted by the SADC Secretariat.

The BDF, he said had established that SADC did not pay for the first month of deployment from July 15 to August 15, 2021 and for the months of October to November.

He added that the SADC Ministerial Committee of the Organ (MCO) convened on April 4 in Pretoria and had since resolved that SADC Secretariat should pay all the outstanding amounts to the Personnel Contributing Countries (PCCs) thus funds approved by MCO would be paid to the individuals’ accounts as soon as SADC Secretariat made remittance to the BDF.

Finally, he said there were four officers who were deployed at the Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM) office in Maputo and were paid at a rate of 100 per cent of the host country’s per diem allowance since neither accommodation nor food were provided for them.

The individuals, he said were paid at a monthly average of P84 000 per person over a period of six months making a total of P504 000 per person for the period, with government spending a total of over P2 million on allowances.

Mr Mmusi was answering a question from Kgalagadi South  MP Mr Sam Brooks who wanted to know whether the soldiers who returned from SAMIM had been fully paid their allowances.

MP Brooks also wanted the minister to state the full list of allowances that were due to troops deployed under SAMIM and also elaborate on what was outstanding and why such allowances had not been paid. Ends