Recent events in the North West province have given the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) confidence that the use of troops to stop unlawful mining is having a good impact.
Police and underground miners in Stilfontein have been at odds for a number of days.
As a result, the local police began to keep an eye on the mine's exits. Additionally, they had cut off subterranean illegal miners' access to food and water.
It has been reported that some of the miners have come out of the mine shafts in poor health after going for days without food or water.
More than 3,000 illegal miners have been found at several North West mines in recent weeks, and authorities have taken action to cut off their access to necessary supplies.
According to reports, after going weeks without even the most basic supplies, many of the miners are weak and exhausted.
Despite the fact that illicit mining was still prevalent in the nation's former gold-mining regions, where miners would enter closed shafts to search for any potential leftover deposits, the police and SANDF promised to bring the situation under control.
In spite of these conflicts, the Defence insisted that the continuous troop deployments as part of the Operation were helping to curb illicit mining.
The agency did admit, though, that the operation is severely taxing a force that is already underfunded.
Members of the current administration's Joint Standing Committee on Defence were asked to endorse President Cyril Ramaphosa's proposal to extend the operation during the committee's first meeting on Friday.
The defence force stressed that communities close to abandoned mining shafts are seeing real benefits from the operation, even though it is still unclear where the additional R140 million needed to continue the deployment of 1,100 soldiers until March will come from.
In six provinces where illegal mining is most common, Lieutenant-General Siphiwe Sangweni is in charge of the joint effort.
The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources has been able to close several of the shafts thanks to the SANDF's efforts to clear space.
However, he noted that because the force's main responsibility was to defend the nation, such deployments put a strain on them.
According to the military, there was no funding set up for the second phase of the operation or the current third extension, and the first phase was severely underfunded.
The department also stated that, despite only receiving R150 million in funding, it went over budget by R200 million during the first phase.
kamogelo.moichela@iol.co.za
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