South Africa's commitment to peacekeeping and peace-making on the continent means the South African National Defence Force will need more money, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Friday.

This, he said, would become even more important when the Southern African Development Community mutual defence pact was signed, probably in August, paving the way for the creation of the African standby force as a permanent military for the continent.

Addressing Parliament, Lekota said that, as the biggest economy in the SADC region, South Africa would have to carry much responsibility for the new regional force.

Defence ministers in the SADC region had resolved all issues delaying the defence pact and he was confident it would be signed at the next regional heads of state summit, in August.

"Parliament and the electorate must remember that each of the state parties participating in collective security do so in keeping with what resources they possess," Lekota said.

He warned that South Africa's increased commitments on the continent, which have seen it deploying peacekeeping units in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, were putting a strain on his department's budget.

"We are deploying twice as many members of the defence force than was anticipated in the defence review, while our budget, as anticipated in the same review, has not been met," he said.

The department was allocated R20.05 -billion for 2003-04.

While this marks an increase from last financial year's budget, Lekota said it was not enough as it meant South Africa had allocated only 1.62% of its gross domestic product and 6.7% of government expenditure to defence.

"This should be compared with countries such as Nigeria, which also plays an important role in the peace mission and spends 4.5% of its GDP on defence.

"Our neighbour Botswana allocates 5.4% of GDP to defence, and our sister country Namibia spends 6.3% on defence," Lekota said.

The African Union's approach to setting up a pan-African military force requires each regional bloc to form its own pact and these will be pulled together to form an African body.

With the West African regional armed force already in existence for more than a decade, it is now up to regions like SADC to follow suit to make the AU's dream a reality.

Lekota told Parliament that discussions about the formation of the continental standby force were at an advanced stage.

ANC MP and chair man of the parliamentary committee on defence Thandi Modise also warned that South Africa would be unable to fulfil its constitutional mandate and its continental obligations without more money.

"The question is, can South Africa afford to deploy effectively, efficiently and rapidly to the region and to the rest of the continent without leaving the republic vulnerable?

With acknowledgements to S'Thembiso Msomi and the Sunday Times.