South African army not attracting enough white troops: official
South Africa's army is struggling to attract white citizens to join up at entry level, a senior army offical said Tuesday.
White South Africans were generally well educated and more likely to opt for civilian employment rather than the army's less attractive remuneration, Chief Lieutenant-General Gilbert Ramano said.
"We need help with this," he told the National Assembly's defence committee.
Figures from the Department of Defence show there are about 75,000 members in the South African National Defence Force. The army makes up 60 percent of the SANDF.
At the moment, 92 percent of the about 47,000 army is black, six percent coloured (mixed race), and only two percent white. There are 14,951 black privates in the SANDF, 1,023 coloureds, 575 whites and 52 Asians.
At the same time, there was a surplus of white officers in the more senior ranks. Department figures show that at the Brigadier General rank in the SANDF, there are 56 Africans, three coloureds, 100 whites and one Asian.
"Programmes of fast tracking and empowerment are being followed to assist in rectifying this problem in the shortest time possible," Ramano said.
However, some progress has been made. For example, 31 percent of the current colonels are black, as opposed to 13 percent in 1998.
The SANDF went through a major integration and rationalisation process after the African National Congress took control of the government in 1994.
The ANC's Umkhonto we Sizwe troops were integrated with the apartheid government's South African Defence Force. Many white officers began leaving the SANDF after 1994.
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04 Mars 2003 à 14:35 dans
- zsandf (anglais)
