Border protection in South Africa is a joint responsibility shared between the Border Management Authority (BMA), the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) and the SA Police Service (SAPS) with, all told, over seven thousand three hundred personnel involved.

This information is contained in a response by Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber to ActionSA National Assembly (NA) Whip Lerato Ngobeni. She asked for details of personnel and equipment as well as wanting to know if the deployed resources were sufficient to manage and secure South Africa’s borders.

On that Schreiber was unequivocal saying “the specified resources are not sufficient to effectively manage and secure the borders of the Republic [of South Africa]”.

National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola’s SAPS is, as per the Ministerial response, the largest personnel contributor to border protection at 4 354 policemen and women – 2 017 more than the SANDF, with the majority of its border protection personnel drawn from SA Army ranks of regular and reserve units.

The balance of 672 is what Schreiber calls “border law enforcement officers” (presumably from Commissioner Michael Masiapato’s BMA). Six hundred and sixteen of them are deployed at “vulnerable areas” along land borders with 56 at “maritime border areas”.

To ensure illegal immigrants, smugglers and other undesirables do not make it into South Africa these “border law enforcement officers” have the use of a range of equipment. It is listed as 44 patrol vehicles, 26 motorcycles, 22 quad bikes, 22 prison vans, four rifles, 127 9mm pistols and another still to be issued 400 pistols.

These men and women, along with police and soldiers, are responsible for policing over four thousand eight hundred kilometres of land border with six countries and a 2 798 km coastline.

Elaborating on the resource shortage, Schreiber said the BMA was funded by transfers from government departments which had staff integrated into what President Cyril Ramaphosa called South Africa’s third security force.

“The transferred budget comprised over 90% of Compensation of Employees (CoE) leaving an immaterial budget for the funding of specialised capital equipment. In response to the envisaged deficit from the monies received through the transfer, BMA applied to National Treasury for an allocation of R2.9 billion and was only approved an allocation of R250 million which is less than 10% of the requested allocation.

“BMA understands that the unfunded capacity building, acquisition of specialised resources and equipment will seriously compromise the ability of the entity to achieve its legislated mandate and applied for the CARA (Criminal Assets Recovery Account) funding. BMA requested a total funding of R500 million. These funds were to be used in funding the purchase of specialised capital equipment.”

An amount of R150 million was approved and will be used for “vehicles and vessels, firearms and ammunition” as well as “technical safety and security equipment”.