Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is to undergo a major shake-up, army chief, Lieutenant-General Solly Shoke said yesterday.

Speaking at an annual state of the army media briefing in Thaba Tshwane yesterday, Shoke said the army would trash the bureaucratic red tape slowing down its 2020 Vision.

For the South African Air Force (SAAF), however, any thoughts of reform may have come too late following reports that dozens of top engineers and technicians have left the service in just a few months, with 10 senior technicians resigning in one week to go to Australia.

It is believed dozens more may follow suit.

The 10 technicians were offered jobs by an Australian aviation agency and are set to leave the country with their families at the end of June. This comes after 20 aircraft engineers were poached by the same agency earlier this month.

Fifty pilots have been employed by South African Airways over the past two years, while the Australian Air Force is believed to have poached 30 senior engineers in just two months.

The army’s 2020 vision was designed to look at how technology can best be used to counter threats or disasters.

Announcing his plans, Shoke said the shake-up would start at army headquarters.

“I want fewer commanders because the command span is currently too wide, with resources and assets too far spread out.”

Shoke said the army will do away with the outsourcing of certain functions to private companies and ensure that the military itself had the capacity to deal with whatever situation arose.

Asked if the special works unit had been established to end reliance on the often inept Public Works Department, Shoke said: “The unit is vital for the SA National Defence Force.

“The current facilities that are owned by the defence force are going down in a bad way. The special works unit will be used to rejuvenate these facilities.”

Technicians at the Ysterplaat air force base in Cape Town said if things progressed as they had, the Air Force could lose all its top technicians by December.

A technician with over 19 years’ experience, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said morale was “at an all time low” at all of the country’s air force bases.

He said “everyone” was talking about leaving the force for better benefits and higher salaries elsewhere.

“Morale is low and the Australian Air Force’s recruitment team will be in the country in two weeks to recruit even more staff.

“Guys are going to apply and have already said they would leave the South African Air Force if offered a job by the Australian government. To be honest, even I’m considering their offer.

“Top management’s attitude, the mass retrenchment of skilled technicians in the late 1990s and the hiring of inexperienced senior personnel are just some of the reasons.

“Crime and the cost of living are secondary reasons why people want to leave.”

The source said senior technicians were paid “peanuts”, often going home with just over R9 000 a month.

“Technicians in exactly same post in Australia go home with anything between R19 000 and R28 000 a month.

“The South African government shouldn’t be moaning that such a lot of skilled people are leaving the defence force, they should rather be reviewing their salary scales.”

Last month South Africa’s military top brass warned that the rate at which soldiers, sailors, pilots and technical personnel were being poached from the South African National Defence Force posed a serious threat to the country’s security.

The loss of pilots to the Australian Air Force also recently prompted the chief of the South African Air Force, Lieutenant-General Carlo Gagiano, to appeal to his Australian counterpart to stop the poaching.

Last week the chief director of the SA Navy’s maritime strategy division, Rear-Admiral Bernhard Teuteberg, said the navy was also struggling because technicians were being poached by international companies.

Numerous calls and emails to the SA Air Force head office in Pretoria and the SA National Defence Department for comment were fruitless.