Cape Talk, Friday afternoon

So more than 500 soldiers were rushed into KwaZulu-Natal within hours of an emergency request with the government fearing violent protests could spread across South Africa. We've been hearing about that from Defence Minister Angie Motsekga. She was telling Parliament today that the situation was so urgent there was little time to notify MPs. I wonder what they made of that. Babalo and Denze has been keeping an eye out. Did that go down well with them this morning?

No, definitely not, Jay, and members of the committee, and this is members from all different parties in the Joint Standing Committee, which is the SOP component and the National Assembly, saying that they're not happy with the fact that these soldiers, 510 of them, were deployed to KZ and to Durban, specifically at Tebuini, in October, early October already, and the letter that the President wrote to Parliament, which he's obliged to do by law.

By the Constitution. It was only sent on the 21st of October, which is last week, sometime just before the end of last week. And we reported on this at the time. So members raised this, saying that they only got this letter well into the deployment. And this is not satisfactory for the Defense Force and the President to do this because they say that Parliament is not just a rubber stamp. And in fact, Parliament, according to some of the members, has the power to decline.

Letter of this nature, you know, for whatever reason. So it's not a rubber stamp, and they need to inform Parliament well within the required time to be able for them to exercise their minds and agree to the deployment. You know, the NGO Chech, the Minister, says, you know, it was so urgent after that constitutional court ruling on asylum seekers that was put into the defense force was misinterpreted. She says that it was so urgent, you know, soon after that. And the intelligence that they were also gathering was informing them of pro.

Protests were going to happen. And this was a national risk, but especially in case that end where there eventually were protests. So very urgent matter, and they had to act quickly and leave these other formalities and bureaucracy aside for a minute while they move ahead and deploy the soldiers and then would inform parliament in that process. So that was basically some of the unset, the anger from the

Committee members. But not just that, also, you know, issues around the operations, Mandy. I beg your pardon, Jane. They said that the budget, this 34 million, is quite, you know, there are discrepancies with the 34 million. I think 11 million of that 34 million goes towards the compensation of the officials that are deployed. I think with the remainder making up the operational costs. And the members raised these discrepancies and questioned the budget as well, and not just the lack of communication.