Don't be alarmed, soldier deployment is 'normal' - Parliament secretary
8 February 2017
Cape Town – There is no cause for alarm and nothing unusual about the deployment of more than 400 soldiers at the State of the Nation Address, secretary to Parliament Gengezi Mgidlana has insisted.
And the soldiers would have absolutely nothing to do with maintaining law and order in Parliament, because it is outside of their mandate, he said on Wednesday.
This comes after President Jacob Zuma announced the "employment of 441 SANDF members to maintain law and order with the SAPS for SONA".
Trying to dispel, what he termed, misinformation about the duties the soldiers would perform on Thursday, Mgidlana told News24 that this years's SONA would not be a "security event".