The possibility of exiting the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) is being turned into reality with the SA Army the first service to be informed what the mobility exit mechanism (MEM) is and comprises.
This saw senior staffers from the Department of Defence (DoD) Human Resource Division making presentations to landward force personnel either approaching 55 or already at and older than that. The presentation, reports Sergeant David Tshivhula from the SA Army Headquarters Unit Communication Office, followed Defence and Military Veterans Minister Thandi Modise making the MEM process known in August. The landward force, as the largest service in the SANDF, will reduce personnel numbers by “almost a thousand” across its formations and directorates.
Those at the presentation in an SA Army Dequar Road headquarters hall heard personnel can exit as early as December this year, age permitting, with the MEM originally set to be operational from 31 January next year.
Army personnel were given insight into medical, insurance and leave situations with regard to the MEM.
On medical and insurance, the specialist human resource practitioners urged those present to continue contributing to the Regular Force medical continuation fund and group life insurance scheme. This will be beneficial to those opting to go the MEM route as well as their immediate family members once out of uniform.
Personnel planning on taking the MEM were discouraged from taking “any sort of leave to avoid delays in final payments”.
Brigadier General Kevin Richards, Directorate Human Resource Strategic Planning, touched on managing money and living within ones’ means after exiting. He further encouraged personnel who would no longer be in uniform to continue living a purposeful life in “the same way they had purpose to serve the SA Army before retirement”.
The SANDF will shed 3 000 personnel over the next three years to stay in budget allocation, which is being consistently reduced. Close to 70% of the R49 billion defence budget is swallowed by employee compensation.
To reduce cost pressures, the DoD aims to keep personnel strength to 73 000 over the current three-year medium term expenditure framework (MTEF). Some personnel will leave using the MENM for which National Treasury allocated R1 billion during FY2022/23 and R800 million for FY2023/24. This translates into planned exit of approximately 3 048 uniformed personnel through MEM over the next three years.
Other initiatives to reduce DoD human resources costs include reducing Reserve Force mandays from 2.6 million to 1.9 million; capping annual increases on operational and regimental allowances; de-activating all normal vacant posts for longer than five years; and conducting a Military Skills Development (MSD) system intake in alternative years (the FY2022/23 planned intake was 1 997; the FY2024/25 intake 2 207 and the 2025/26 intake will be 2 207).
