Pretoria - The SA Navy is on track with its racial quotas, but is experiencing hiccups in filling posts for its battle ships, chief of the navy Vice-Admiral Refiloe Mudimu has said.

Forty-one percent of uniformed navy staff members are black, 19% short of the target; 8% are Asian, which exceeds the target by 6%; and 25% are coloured, 10% more than the target.

White uniformed personnel account for 26%, which is 3% more than the targets require.

Training was of the utmost importance, with more than 56% of the navy's R1.27-billion budget being spent on staff.

Care was being taken to meet targets without compromising combat readiness, Mudimu said.

He was worried about the small number of black uniformed members on the navy's fighting ships, which included the corvettes and new submarines.

Provision had been made for concerted mentoring and fast-tracking, particularly in the combat and technical fields.

"The navy is working hard at reducing a shortfall of submariners in time to receive its three new submarines. Eventually we hope to have four full crews broadly representative of South Africa's demographics for our three submarines."

The main crew members of the country's first submarine, the S101, are being trained in Germany. In September, the German navy is to give 24 more South African artisans an initial submarine course. Twenty officers, 16 of them black, are receiving submarine combat and engineering training in India.

Director of naval plans Rear Admiral Bernhard Teuteberg said one of the reasons for the lack of submariners was that when the Daphne submarines were decommissioned, there was no platform for training.

Maritime warfare director Rear Admiral Rusty Higgs said another problem was the difficult training and psychological tests volunteers had to pass

With acknowledgements to Graeme Hosken and the Cape Times.