The SA Air Force has lost dozens of top engineers and technicians in just a few months, with ten senior technicians resigning in one week to go to Australia.

The ten technicians were offered jobs by an Australian aviation agency. This comes after 20 aircraft engineers were poached by the same agency earlier in May.

Technicians at Ysterplaat air force base say that if management doesn't come up with a solution to the problem soon, the SAAF could lose all its top technicians by December.

A technician with 20 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 more benefits and higher salaries.

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

The source added that although pilots and technical personnel enjoyed their jobs, conditions had worsened over the past five years.

"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 the secondary reasons why people want to leave."

The source said senior technicians were paid "peanuts", and were going home with just over R9 000 a month.

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

"The 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."

In April, SA's military top brass warned that the rate at which soldiers, sailors, pilots and technicians were being poached from the SANDF posed a serious threat to the country's security.

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

But the former head of the SA Navy's mechanical operations in Simon's Town, David Nathan, said the skills shortage was created by the retrenchment of nearly 1 000 skilled engineers in the 1990s.

* This article was originally published on page 5 of The Star on May 31, 2008

With acknowledgements to Clayton Barnes and Sunday Independent.