Re-evaluating Oversight of South African Defence Procurement: Can Combined Assurance Help Extract Full Accountability from the Department of Defence?

Abstract

The Department of Defence and the South African National Defence Force have been plagued by defence procurement irregularities since the inception of democracy. As a result, several scholars have questioned the ability of certain oversight mechanisms to conduct proper oversight of the military, and of defence procurement specifically. The study on which this article reports therefore aimed to evaluate the ability of Parliament, the Military Ombud, the Auditor-General of South Africa, and the Public Protector to extract accountability from the Department of Defence for its defence procurement activities. Discussion of these four mechanisms will constitute the basis for evaluating whether a renewed approach to oversight, in the form of combined assurance, might be able to allow for extracting greater accountability from the military for its non-compliance with the regulatory frameworks of South African defence procurement.