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Army's Top Officer Admits Mistakes |
| Publication |
Independent Online |
| Date | 2009-02-13 |
| Reporter | Graeme Hosken |
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Web Link |
The South African Army has admitted that it has made some serious mistakes,
especially when it comes to training.
The admission by army chief, Lieutenant-General Solly Shoke, was made during a
media briefing on the state of the army in Pretoria.
Speaking at the SA Army College in Thaba Tshwane, Shoke said while they had made
mistakes they were learning some "valuable" lessons from them.
The army has several plans through which to overhaul the way it is run and to
shape it for the future to ensure that its 2020 vision - the plan for its future
- is achieved.
The army recently increased the basic training of its new recruits, brought into
the defence force through the Military Skills Development System (MSDS), to
22 weeks *1.
In the past a troop's basic training, which was declared inadequate, lasted only
14 weeks *2.
The MSDS programme is aimed at recruiting thousands of young men and women on a
voluntary basis to bolster the SANDF.
Late in 2008 senior army officers admitted during the army's annual combat
readiness exercise that there were serious causes for concern around basic
training.
Concerns were raised about issues such as musketry and weapon handling skills by
Major-General Vusi Masondo, who is responsible for the force's preparation.
He told a Press conference in November that troops could not be deployed if they
did not have the necessary basic skills.
Fielding questions on Thursday Shoke said a number of troops had recently been
sent to Brazil, India and Tunisia to undergo jungle and desert training.
Asked why this had not been done earlier and why the defence force did not have
such facilities, Shoke said: "We never thought that our troops would be fighting
in the desert and jungles.
"I admit that this is a shortcoming, but we are however learning valuable
lessons from our shortcomings and are improving on them," he said.
Commenting on the longer period for basic training, Shoke said the time spent in
the past was not enough to make a new recruit into a proper soldier.
"They were still 'mamma boys' with high school mentalities.
"We have decided that we need to turn these new recruits into proper soldiers
and the only way to do that is to conduct proper training," he said.
He said other shortcomings that they were learning from were the errors that
were made from the loss of capabilities around chemical and biological warfare
and explosive and ordinance disposal.
"We were wrong to do this, but these capabilities are now slowly being
resuscitated," he said.
Shoke said another area which needed desperate attention was the age of troops.
"We can no longer have a situation where we are stuck with 40-something-year-old
troops.
"Our human resources management is the same as the public service.
"This is wrong and is a 'mistake'. We need to develop a different and separate
system to rectify this and we need to do this soon if we are to breathe life
back into the army," he said.
Commenting on other challenges facing the army, Shoke hinted at a major
overhaul, especially when it came to addressing
ill-discipline *3 and the replacement of
"prime" mission equipment *4, which had to be done as quickly as
possible.
"Discipline is one of the biggest problems the army is grappling with.
"Together with our legal services we are looking at mechanisms which will enable
commanders to institute disciplinary measures.
"The army will be harsh with those ill-disciplined elements,
which are in our midst *5. We will not
hesitate to deal with them effectively and properly," he warned, adding that
discipline was the cornerstone of the army's success.
Responding to questions on desperately-needed
equipment, Shoke said: "The army is doing away
with the 'nice-to-haves *6' and focusing on the necessities.
"We are mindful of the challenges South Africa faces, and while we would love to
have all our prime equipment, we accept that there are other prime social issues
which the country has to address," he said.
With acknowledgements to
Graeme Hosken and Independent Online.