Hello Zim

[BigAl-sa]

Pretty sure they don't use Gripen's for sea patrols.

erm, don't see Gripens anywhere in my response

You need long range reconnaissance planes for sea patrols.

 

[Africaner]

Very sad state of affairs What the hell is going on? What for did the ANC go into that arms deal a few years ago? All the anti ANC whitties were right after all.

 

[KhoisanX]

SAAF to lose maintenance technicians
The South African Air Force’s air servicing units will lose 389 skilled maintenance technicians on April 1 but will retain the services of 139 specialists following the expiration of the contract with Denel’s Aero Manpower Group (AMG).

This is a net loss of just less than 75% of the specialist and skilled workers from one Denel business unit, the majority of who are classified as having scarce skills.

The retention of the 139 specialists is in terms of a negotiated skills supply agreement between the South African Air Force (SAAF) and Aero Manpower Group that will see them deployed to various SAAF air servicing units (ASUs) across the country, including AFB Waterkloof, where the VIP squadron is based. According to Denel, they will still be employed by the state-owned defence industry conglomerate.

The agreement brings to an end protracted negotiations that started last November when the SAAF announced it would not renew its contract with AMG. The cancellation was put down to the contract apparently being in violation of sections of the Public Finance Management Act.

The termination of the contract, with no further work in hand, left a total of 528 AMG aircraft engineers and technicians facing retrenchment. Negotiations between various trade unions, including Solidarity and Fedusa, and Denel ended this week when it was announced that a year contract for 139 specialists had been agreed to.

Solidarity’s Jack Loggenberg said negotiations with Denel would continue with a view to finding work for the 389 retrenched AMG personnel in other Denel divisions, business units or companies but he was not optimistic about this process.

Addressing Parliament’s Standing committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) earlier this week, Defence Secretary Dr Sam Gulube said that not all the 500 plus workers could be classified as having scarce and specialist skills. He also indicated those who remained on the Denel payroll would be used for skills transfer to enable to SAAF to build capacity in this sector.

Denel Aviation chief executive Mike Kgobe said the agreement will see the company continue delivering “vital maintenance services” to the SAAF.

Some more info, wonder what's going to happen after this one year contracts runs out.

The Gripens have actually been used to patrol the Mozambique channel as part of operation Copper, they have a far better than the radar than the C-47 and they can share information with the frigates in real time using Link ZA.

 

[Solarion]

There is never enough money for fuel so everything is grounded most of the time while the fat cats go shopping in pink slippers with the gravy.

I always remember the air force being very active over our skies even around Toti growing up. Back now for several years now and not seen a single jet and perhaps half a dozen copters. Miss seeing them. Quite sad really.

 

[patrick]

Didn't the minister just mention something about public enterprises bleeding money?

Sorry for the people involved.

 

[Nick333]

I was one of the people running a function for the air force/denel (lower case implied) ground staff today. It was supposed to be one of these team building kind of exercises. Instead, it was more like a memorial service.

Today, 234 of the ground staff in Pretoria got retrenched.

We are prolly at the stage where zim can take over SA with the helicopters we donated to them...

Sucks for those people, but we just don't need a military the size it is now. The fact is a very small and efficient defense force could take care of any threats to our borders and we could never defend ourselves against any invading nation with a proper navy anyway. And anyway, if we were invaded by a force we were unable to handle we could rely on the help of far more powerful nations than ourselves who have interests here.