SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL DEFENCE FORCE INTEGRATION PROGRESS REPORT TO THE PARLIAMENTARY INTEGRATION OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (PIOC) 1999/2000
Appendix A: Graphic Representation of Facts containedin this Report
Appendix B: SANDF Recruiting Plan
Appendix C: Criteria for Rationalisation
Appendix D: Termination of Integration Process and Demobilisation Amendment Bills
INTRODUCTION 1. The aim of this report is to enlighten the members of PIOC on the progress with integration since the last meeting and to highlight certain areas of concern that emanated from the integration process.
SCOPE 2. The following issues are addressed in this report:
a. Current statistics with respect to integration.
b. Statutory Force Integration.
c. Integration of people who have received amnesty.
d. Integration of Non-Statutory Force members in the Reserve Force.
e. Current status of demobilisation.
f. Rationalisation.
g. Areas of concern.
h. The termination of the Integration Process and the Demobilisation Amendment Bills.
i. Conclusion.
CURRENT STATISTIC WITH RESPECT TO INTEGRATION 3. Since the last report to the PIOC an additional 1 234 former members of the Non-
Statutory Forces wereintegrated in July 1998. Of these 690 members were placed in the Army, 380 in the Air Force, 36 in the Navy and 17 in the South African Military Health Service. There are currently 5 234 former APLA members serving in the SANDF, 11 041 former MK members, 8 038 former TBVC members and 48 499 former SADF members. The former MK members now constitute 13.5 % and APLA 6.2 % of the SANDF in comparison with the figures of 1996 of 11.5 % and 3.2 % respectively. The figures of the former TBVC members dropped from 10 739 (10.6 %) to 8 038 (9.5 %) and those of the SADF from 70 632 (69.9 %) to 48 499 (57.4%) over the same period.
4. Of the total of 44 078 names on the collective Non-Statutory Force CPR,30 449 or
69.1% have reported for either integration or demobilisation while the remainder of 12 629
(30.9%) are still outstanding. Continuous attempts have been made to inform members of their right to integrate, which resulted in the July 1998 intake and an individual intake of 50 members, which commenced on 3 November 1999.
5.Former Non-Statutory Force members are distributed amongst the Services in the ratio of Army 82.4%, Air Force 4.4%, Navy 2.4%, Military Health Service 8.8%and lntelligence Division and Chaplain-General 2%.The reason why so few of the former Non-Statutory Force members were allocated to Intelligence is because of the highly specialist field that these members operate in and the small number of posts available compared to the other Services. Of the members who integrated, 82.2%are male and 17.8% female while 10.3%are officers and the remaining 89.7% being Warrant Officers, Non-commissioned Officers and Privates.
6. The number of Blacks serving in the SANDF increased from 37.5% in 1994, to 58.9% in 1999 whilst those of the Whites dropped from 45% dropped to 27.8%over the same period. There was an increase of 33.4% in the representivity of farmer Non-Statutory Force members in the officers corps since 1996. Significant growth took place in the ranks of Lt Gen (100%), Cols (58%) and Lt Cols (55%). Former Non-Statutory Force and TBVC officers have been appointed in senior posts for instance. General Officers Commanding Infantry Formation, Army Battle School, Waterkloof Air Force Base, the Commandant of the SA Army College and the Officer Commanding of the Infantry School. Although 12 officers have been appointed as formation or unit commanders in the SA Army, 5 in the SA Air Force, one in the SA Navy and 5 in the Military Health Service, there is still an urgent need to increase the number of Black unit commanders to build confidence in the chain of command. Special efforts have been introduced to qualify Black members as unit commanders and the situation will continue to improve.
7. Although all the Services are now fairly well represented, there are several musterings which are still predominantly white (eg fighter pilots, surgeons, naval combat officers, etc). This can be attributed to the former Non-Statutory Force members having being trained mainly in guerilla warfare and the lack of academic qualifications especially in subjects like mathematics and science due to their disadvantaged educational backgrounds and the time spent in exile. The efforts by the DOD to educate serving members by means of a computerised programme called Plato in the abovementioned subjects will not alleviate the problem and the SANDF recruiting plan is therefore aimed at the acquisition of suitable qualified recruits. A copy of the SANDF recruiting targets is attached as Appendix B.
STATUTORY FORCE INTEGRATION 8. Membership of the SA National Defence Force is stipulated ito Sec 224 (2) of the Constitution, and implies the full integration of all existing military and armed forces in the RSA into a single Defence Force.
9. In the case of the Statutory Force their translation from their previous force to the SANDF was conducted according to the then Public Service Commission's translation measures. The audit of personnel files and records of these members is part of the translation measures.
10. The procedures for the audit of these records are stipulated in the Verification Process, mutually agreed upon, and consists of two steps namely the audit of the files and the notification of all members that they are fully integrated if their records are found to be in order. If documents are not available on an individual's file, the individual is responsible to obtain these documents.
11. In the SA Army 22 315 files of former SADF personnel have been audited which leaves a balance of 4 188 files. Of the former TBVC members, 4 653 files have been audited, which leaves a balance of 824 files. Of the former TBVC members, 4 653 files have been audited, which leaves a balance of 824 files. 7 776 letters are in the process of being dispatched. The target date for the completion of the process in the SA Army is June 2000.
12. The SA Air Force Verification Team completed the verification of all the records. The last of the letters of notification were dispatched at the end of October 1999.
13. In the SA Navy there are approximately 290 files left to audit. The project will be completed by the end of the year.
14. In SAMHS 21 files out of a total of 3 746 must still be audited. 1 537 letters of appointment are in process of being dispatched.
15. Since the process does not provide for members to appeal against their ranks no major problems have been experienced.
INTEGRATION OF PEOPLE WHO RECEIVED AMNESTY 16. A Department ofDefence Instruction has been published to provide for the integration of former Non-Statutory Force members who have received amnesty from the TRC. The same procedures as for the previous intake will be applied but special arrangements will be implemented to councel members who have been traumatised.
17. The exact number of people who will receive amnesty is unknown but 33 former APLA members have already been identified and are being processed for integration
INTEGRATION OF NON-STATUTORY FORCE MEMBERS IN THE RESERVE FORCE 18. The process of integrating former Non-Statutory Force members into the Reserve Force has also commenced. The requirements for integration will be the same as those for the Regular Force. The procedures will also be similar.
19. The first information briefing to potential candidates will take place on 27 November
1999 and the placement boards will commence shortly thereafter.
10. Initially only leader group candidates will be considered to ensure representivity in the ranks of the officers and non-commissioned officers when the privates are integrated.
CURRENT STATUS OF DEMOBILISATION 21. 6 664 Former MK members and 2 593 former APLA members have been demobilised
An amount of R22 763 395 was paid out to these members whilst the dependants of 523 former MK and 40 former APLA members received an amount of R17 397 090 (Total R 146 817 760).
ACTIVITIES OF THE SANDF INTEGRATION COMMITTEE (IC) 22. The IC is still fulfilling its mandate to monitor progress with the integration process. It has also advised the management structure of the DOD on various problems and anomalies in the process. These are discussed in more detail in paragraphs 33 to 63.
23. Progress with the integration process which resulted in the appointment (if more former Non-Statutory members in command posts, the IC decided to scale down on its visits to headquarters and units as it was felt that the line of command must solve the day to day integration problems.
24. The Defence Staff Council instructed the Inspector General (lG) of the DOD to conduct an investigation into the activities of the IC to determine whether the IC still has a role to play. The IG recommended that the lC should manage down its activities
RATIONALISATION 25. It is envisaged that the personnel numbers in the DOD will be reduced from a current figure of 84 507 to a strength of between 65 000 to 70 000 as a result of the transformation process. The rationalisation process will be governed by a set of criteria, which have been approved by the DOD and ratified by all other panics concerned, and is attached as Appendix C.
20. This reduction will also affect Non-Statutory Force members and it was thus decided to inform the PIOC briefly on the measures that will be implemented to prepare these members for re-integration into civil society.
27. As part of the overall approach on rationalisation, the DOD has the responsibility to make every endeavour to assist those being retrenched with their social and economic reintegration.
28. The members earmarked for retrenchment will be given the opportunity to benefit from the training opportunities provided by the Service Corps that has been appointed as the reintegration Agency for the DOD. They will be responsible for providing assistance to those who are earmarked for retrenchment and have requested such assistance for upgrading their standard of education, improving vocational and life skills, facilitating training and practical experience to enable them to either find employment, or to start their own business.
29. In order to address some of the difficulties members may experience during a period of rationalisation, a structure called the Transition Support Centre (TSC) has been designed and will be implemented once the process of rationalisation is initiated. The TSC, comprising of members of the Military Health Service multi-disciplinary team, must prepare and support DOD members in dealing with personal matters resulting from transition in such a way that human dignity is maintained. A TSC will be deployed at each of the General Support Bases that will provide easy access to this specialist service.
30. Rationalisation can only commence once the new structure of the DOD is in place, the Employer Initiated Retrenchment Package is finalised and the procedures to govern the process have been finalised.
AREAS OF CONCERN 31. The IC has reported a number of problems to the Command Structures of the DOD that emanated from the integration process. These areas of concern are addressed in paragraphs 33 to 63.
NAMES NOT ON THE CERTIFIED PERSONNEL REGISTERS (CPR) 32. The submission of CPRs/name lists for all the constituent forces of the SANDF is provided for in the TEC Act, the Interim Constitution and the New Constitution. CPRs submitted to the TEC before 27 April 1994, which were to be updated monthly as well as the names submitted by an armed force on or before 11 October 1996, subject to certain provisos, are valid name lists for integration purposes. The Minister was also mandated to order the inclusion, on good cause shown, the name of any member who was by reason of an administrative oversight or error not included in the CPR for demobilisation purposes only.
33. It has now come to the fore that a number of errors have been made during the compilation of the CPRs. The names of some Iegitimate members have been omitted, names were spelled incorrectly from those reflected on the ID documents, and not all the names of a person are reflected on the CPR.
34. These omissions led to numerous enquiries from affected members and the DOD is contemplating possible solutions to the problem.
35. Certain of the former Non-Statutory members were registered on the CPRs under their combat names. Administrative measures were introduced to allow for the substitution of the combat names with the real names to allow these members to be integrated. It was, however, detected in 1998 that certain people misused this svstem and that people integrated fraudulently. Immediate action was taken and 33 of these fraudulent enlisters were discharged whilst a team of forensic auditors was also appointed to investigate further possible fraud during the Integration Process.
BRIDGING TRAINING 36. The Joint Military Co-ordinating Council resolved that the members of the former Non-Statutory Force should undergo training to bridge the gap between guerrilla and conventional warfare and to make the members conversant with the management of a regular force.
37. Bridging Training is being conducted in three phases, namely basic training, corps or functional training and career development training. All the members of the former Non-Statutory Forces have to complete basic and corps training whilst only the leader group is eligible for career development training to empower them for their ranks and posts.
38. Whilst there is only a very small number of members who have not yet completed their basic training, 33 % of the members have not completed their corps and career development training. This is not only detrimental to the career development of the individual but also reflects negatively on the operational readiness of the SANDF since these members have not been empowered and they therefore lack the knowledge to be operationally deployed.
39. Various factors contributed towards this unsatisfactory state of affairs. The first hurdle was the lack of capacity of the SANDF to provide suitable instructors and sufficient training facilities to train the large number of former Non-Statutory Force members.
40. The continuation of the integration process and the two chance concept whereby an unsuccessful student is allowed to repeat a course, increased the number of students to be trained and caused all the phases of Bridging Training to be extended.
41. Although every effort was made to provide training pamphlets in English, the majority of the instructors were Afrikaans speaking and some had a reluctance to teach in English, whereas some of the Non-Statutory Force members did not understand Afrikaans and others had objections to being instructed. This matter has to an extent been rectified and there are currently, for instance, 17 officers instructors in the SA Army and 22 in the SA Air Force. Warrant Officers and non-commissioned officers are utilised in Senior instructors posts in the SA Army and a total of 70 in the SA Air Force.
42. Other factors that contributed toward the state of affairs are loss of expertise at some training establishments, the re-evaluation of ranks which required members to attend additional Bridging Training courses, some members who at times failed to report for courses or absented themselves during courses and inefficient course administration which resulted in the underutilisation of vacancies.
43. The SANDF in conjunction with BMATT is continuously monitoring the situation. Measures to improve the course administration and the full utilisation of vacancies on courses have been introduced. C Army has also appointed a team to investigate methods to expedite the completion of Bridging Training in the SA Army.
REVIEW OF RANKS 44. The procedure for the ranking of former Non-Statutory Force members had been agreed upon in the Joint Military Co-ordinating Council. This process has in general been conducted satisfactory except for the isolated cases mentioned hereunder.
45. In the case of the SA Navy former Non-Statutory Force members were ''recruited'' because they had no naval experience and could therefore not be adjudicated and ranked according to the SA Naval personnel profiles. These members were thus disadvantaged compared to those who joined the other Services and the Chief of the Navy was granted permission to review the ranks of these members. The process is still ongoing and 350 members have been re-evaluated. The ranks of the majority have been elevated by at least one rank, and 26 to officer rank.
46. It has also come to the fore that some members from the first intakes might have been disadvantaged by being under-ranked at that time. The SANDF is still contemplating possible solutions to this problem.
INFLATION OF RANKS 47. The under-achievement of some APLA members on the Bridging Training courses caused concern, as it appears if ranks may have been inflated during placement.
SERVICE BENEFITS 48. In terms of the Constitution members of the former Statutory Forces who integrated into the SANDF automatically became members of the SANDF. These members were contractually bound to the State as employer by virtue of their employment contracts. The Non-Statutory Force members, on the other hand, integrated into the SANDF, provided that such agreements shall be in accordance with normal employment within the SANDF, provided that such agreements shall be in accordance with normal employment policies and practices. These members were also not contractually bound to the State. This differentiation caused dissatisfaction amongst the former Non-Statutory Force members in various spheres.
49. The former Non-Statutory Force members, being new appointees in terms of the relevant prescripts are entitled to leave benefits as new appointees since their previous service with the former force is not recognised for leave purposes. In terms of the leave prescripts all the members were entitled to 30 days per year. The General Regulations determine that a member of the SANDF is entitled to 36 days accumulated leave after completion of 15 years service and 38 days leave after completion of 15 years service. The Defence Staff Council has recommended to the Minister to amend the General Regulations to recognise former Non-Statutory Force service for leave classification purposes. The Minister promulgated the amendment on 28 October 1999.
50. For the same reason as mentioned above the former the former Non-Statutory Force member's previous service is not recognised for pension benefits. The Defence Staff Council recommended to the Minister to approach Cabinet to obtain approval for recognition of years of service prior to 1994, for the provision of pension benefits to former MK and APLA members in the SANDF and of Public Service Act Personnel in the DOD for the purpose of financing pension benefits. A Cabinet Memorandum has been submitted in this regard and principle approval obtained.
THE SHOOTING INCIDENT AT TEMPE MILITARY BASE 51. The Board of Inquiry convened to investigate the shooting incident at 1 SA Infantry Battalion has submitted its finding. The stipulations of the Inquest Act, 1959, provides that any person who prejudices, influences or anticipates the proceedings or findings of an inquest being conducted by the SAPS, shall be guilty of an offence. This has an obvious limiting effect on the information provided in this report.
52. In the light of the sensitivity and high profile of the incident coupled to the need for transparency, the Chief of the SA National Defence Force, however, revealed some of the more important findings of the Board in the form of a media statement on 12 November I 999 The findings are appended hereunder.
53. There are two distinct camps in the unit. One denying that there are racial tensions and the other stating that there are racial and cultural differences. The key personnel running the administrative section being white and lower ranks being all black and having no white troops compounded this. An ''us and them" syndrome based on membership of former forces worsened the situation.
54. The staffing process has created a high level of uncertainty especially among those who have not yet been staffed.
55. There is a perception among top management in Free State Command that transformation is moving too fast whereas lower ranks believe that changes are too slow.
56. No indications of outside involvement could be found.
57. The Chief of the SA National Defence also announced remedial steps that will be
implemented to rectify shortcomings identified by the board.
58. As a result and as part of the transformation process, the SANDF will continue to look at ways to streamline administrative processes in a number of areas including the fields orleave and pay administration. 59. The management and handling of members who have still not been satisfied, career management of members and ensuring that the correct channels of command are followed, will also be addressed.
60. Every effort will be made to reduce cross-cultural tensions by speeding up our formal and informal Leadership and Cultural Diversity Training courses. We are also intensifying our efforts to enhance two-way communication in the SANDF to encourage members to air their grievances rather than to resort to alternative methods which could lead to interpersonal tension and even violence.
61. The Chief of the SA National Defence Force also issued a stem warning to all members of the SANDF that the laws of our country and the Military Discipline Code (MDC) exist and will be enforced. Members who make themselves guilty of offences, regardless of the nature of those offences, will be dealt with severely in terms of the Law and the MDC. We cannot allow ill discipline to damage the image of the SANDF in the eyes of the public.
INCIDENT OF CHEATING AT THE SA AR.~lY COLLEGE 62. The different trials of the 12 members on the 1999 SCSD Course were scheduled to commence on the 13th of March 2000. The accused though, decided not to make use of the legal counsel that they initially briefed, but rather retained the services of the legal insurance firm, Legal Soldier. Said firm is not prepared to proceed in this regard since it poses to approach the High Court with an application of a constitutional nature.
RECURRING THEMES REPORTD BY BNL&TT 63.Commander BMATT has identified several recurring issues that affect former Non-Statutory Force members.
64. Pay problems arising from the extended period of time to re-activate a member's pay when he or she was AWOL, transferring from Short-term Service to the Medium-term Service contracts resulting in a member's pay being stopped, and the deduction of pension fund contributions in a lump sum when a member changes from Short-term Service to Medium-term Service, are high on the list.
65. The SANDF has already instituted changes to alleviate the problems. The process of releasing a person's salary when he/she was AWOL has been adjusted to release hispay within 7 working days. In case of contract changes from Short-term contracts to Medium-term contracts, a member's salary will be released programmatically. As all members are now contributing towards the pension fund no back dated pension fund contributions will be deducted in the future.
66. The Departmental policy on the presentation of formal courses also came under scrutiny. The current system of evaluation and the requirement to obtain a 60% pass mark on all courses are, according to BMATT, contributing towards students' illegal actions to achieve pass marks. The pass/fail criteria applied by the SANDF are also being questioned.
67. Chief of Joint Training is busy with the revision of the Departmental policy on formal training in which the concerns of BMATT will inter alia be addressed.
TERMINATION OF INTEGRATION AND THE DEMOBILISATION AMENDNIENT
BILLS 68. The draft legislation which is currently before Parliament is intended to formally and
legally bring the integration and demobilisation process to an end. The proposed date is 30 September 2001.
69. A final intake will therefore have to be completed before that date and the planning for this to be done is presently in progress.
CONCLUSION 70. Only 31 former Non-Statutory Force members could be assembled for the November
1999 intake which is an indication that those members eligible for integration have to a large extend exercised their rights to integrate. There will still be an opportunity for late comers to be integrated, and provision has also been made for those members who have, or will receive amnesty, from the TRC to be integrated. Only members whose names appear on the CPRs can be considered for integration or demobilisation.
CHIEF OF THE SA NATIONAL DEFENCE FORCE: GENERAL
(LT GEN A.M.L. MASONDO)