Air Force cuts contract wings
Date: 14 November 2012
The following is rough translation of a Afrikaans article that appeared in the Beeld newspaper:
By Erika Gibson
A decision that could compromise the airworthiness of the Air force's aircraft, including the VIP aircraft, hit the military aviation ranks this week like a bomb.
523 of Denel Aviation / Atlas Manpower Group (AMG) aircraft specialists, who keep the air force's planes in the air, face being fired should the Air Force contract with AMG be suspended.
This decision was taken after the Air Force last year gave notice that the contract be suspend and establish an alternate dispensation.
The air force negotiations over the new dispensation, which would come into force from April 1 next year, was unilaterally suspended last week.
Denel and the Air Force has said the case is still under discussion. They will only comment when discussions are completed.
"Something happened in the past 14 days, but I do not know what. We were confident that the negotiation process was still on-going and the next moment it ended," Jack Loggenberg, Solidarity's national organizer for the metal and engineering industry, said yesterday.
According to a letter sent yesterday to 523 employees, the Air Force's decision has far-reaching consequences for its operational capability and flight operations.
The decision affects people nationwide who for decades worked at the Air Force's various squadrons.
According to Loggenberg, 75% of the AMG staff have scarce and critical skills without which the Air Force cannot function.
"Their skills are highly sought after because there is a worldwide shortage of aircraft technicians. They will be gobbled up elsewhere and then the Air Force will be without qualified experts to keep its aircraft operationally," he said.
At the same time, the Air Force, which has been in severe financial trouble, is responsible under the contract for employees' severance packages worth millions.
The contract had to be replaced because it does not meet the state's financial tender requirements.
The Auditor General identified it as a financial irregularity in his annual audit. A new tender would have to be issued and the contract staff, as experts, has to be absorbed into the Air Force.
According to the letter, the Air Force is "reviewed its decision and decided not to continue with the new contract with Denel Aviation / AMG after March 31, 2013".
"This is probably the worst Christmas gift any man can get," said an anonymous AMG technician, a few years from retirement at 65 and now did not know what will happen to him, despondently said.
