SAfrican army chief, defence minister reportedly clash over army restructuring.
A blazing row over the restructuring of the Department of Defence has erupted between the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) chief, Gen Siphiwe Nyanda, on the one side and minister of defence. Mosiuoa Lekota and his director general January Masilela, on the other.
The row stems from Lekota's endorsement of Masilela's proposal to strip Nyanda of some of his powers in favour of Masilela, who heads the civilian section of the defence department, also known as the Secretariat for Defence.
Masilela compiled a report outlining his proposals after he was requested to do so at a council of defence meeting in June. Lekota had provisionally approved Masilela's proposals at the meeting. The report was submitted to Lekota in July.
Lekota endorsed the proposals six days later - despite Nyanda's protestation that some of the proposals were "untenable and unlawful".
Nyanda said Lekota should seek President Thabo Mbeki's input before endorsing Masilela's proposals. Alternatively, he suggested that Lekota set up a joint Secretariat-SANDF project team to analyze fully the implications of proposals and devise implementation options.
The proposals included, among other things, a recommendation that Lekota transfer a number of key SANDF divisions from Nyanda's command to the secretariat. The divisions include human resource management, military logistic, command and management information, and military legal services.
Nyanda charges that Lekota's decision would hamper him in discharging many of his statutory responsibilities - and would diminish the SANDF's capacity to defend the country.
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12 Septembre 2003 à 12:31 dans
- zsandf (anglais)
