CHAPTER 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
- Introduction
Section 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996 enshrines the rights of all people and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. The Bill of Rights in the Constitution stipulates that all citizens have fundamental rights and freedom within the law. Section 9 of the Constitution also states that everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefits of the law. The Constitution also requires, amongst others, that the composition of the public service is broadly representative of the South African society.
Chapter 10 of the South African White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service of 1994, and Chapter 2 of the South African White Paper on Affirmative Action of the Public Service of 1998, require that all state departments should be representative. These principles are also echoed in Chapter 6 of the South African White Paper on Defence of 1998, which notes that the Department of Defence (DOD) should be representative in order to achieve legitimacy. Chapter 1 of the South African White Paper on Human Resource Management for the Public Service of 1997 describes how national departments would have to transform policies to achieve increased representivity. It is on the basis of the above policies that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is compelled to adopt effective strategies to recruit, select and appoint personnel from diverse communities to enhance the demographic representivity within its ranks.
The South African Employment Equity Act, (Act 55 of 1998) in its preamble recognises that, as a result of apartheid and other discriminatory laws and practices, there are disparities in employment, occupation and income within the national labour market. Such disparities create pronounced disadvantages for certain categories of people. In order to promote the constitutional right of equality, many public departments and not only the DOD, are committed to promoting equal access to employment opportunities,
in order for the workforce to be representative of the community in which it seeks to serve (Doherty & Horne 2002: 240).
Many years of enforced discriminatory policies in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) resulted in the marginalisation of certain persons or categories of person’s, hereafter, referred to as designated groups. The results of such discriminatory practices are that the DOD does not reflect the demographics of the population of the RSA. There is, therefore, a need to promulgate specific human resource policies that would ensure that representivity is achieved at all levels and which also ensure that all DOD personnel enjoy equality of opportunity by inter alia affirmative action programmes, and equity with regard to treatment.
It is also of great concern that, after 15 years of democracy in the RSA, the South African (SA) Navy, as part of the DOD is not yet representative and there is still a shortage of blacks in certain mustering and professions. The study intends to establish the reason for the current state of affairs with regard to representivity in the SA Navy. Is the SA Navy doing enough to recruit suitable black youth for entry into the institution?
Motivation for the Study
The DOD is required to transform into an agency that is coherent and representative of the South African society. According to the White Paper of the National Defence for the Republic of South Africa of 1996, it was advised that in order to achieve legitimacy of the armed forces, the department is committed to the goal of overcoming the legacy of gender and racial discrimination. This will be achieved by ensuring that the department and its leadership in particular, is broadly representative of the South African population. In terms of Section 15 of the South African Employment Equity Act, (Act 55 of 1998), affirmative action measures are measures designated to ensure that suitably qualified people from designated groups have equal employment opportunities and equitable representation in all occupational categories and levels of the workforce.
It is within this context that the SA Navy should strive to achieve representivity to reflect the demographics of the South African society. It is vital at this point to mention that the
SA Navy is part of the DOD and the SANDF in particular. The organisational structure indicated in Chapter 3 (3.1) of this study will show the connection between the DOD, SANDF and the SA Navy. The demographics in Chapter 10, (par 55) of the South African Defence Review of 1998 indicated the population mix of whites at 30 percent, which was considered relatively high. It has since been proposed that the racial mix in the DOD should be 64,6 percent African, Whites at 24,3 percent, Coloureds at 10,2 percent and Asians at 0,75 percent. It should be born in mind that the census conducted in the RSA during 1997 indicated Africans to be 76,7 percent, Coloureds at 8,9 percent, Asians at 2,6 percent and Whites at 10,9 percent. The racial mix proposed by the DOD was, therefore, below demographic representation. The 2007 community survey (2007: 25), the last to be conducted in the RSA indicates the percentage distribution of the population groups in terms of Africans at 79 percent, Coloureds at 9 percent, Asians at 2,6 percent and Whites at 9,5 percent. In comparison with the SA Navy as indicated in Chapter 3 (3.5) of the study, representivity in the SA Navy is still yet to be achieved in terms of the current race mix.
