Let me agree that at the Defence Force we use command and control strategies, but ...]
... command and control are mainly within the military structures. If you talk about military discipline, I can say with certainty that there we excel. But once you come to questions of finance and other things that are more administrative, you would find that it's not only soldiers that are involved. We've got a big component of our staff who are, what we call in Defence, civilians. Those are the people who deal with these things.
I must also agree with you. One of the problems we have is what we inherited. You know, we are at the moment trying to change Defence to be accountable. If you look at soldiers generally, by their nature, they don't want to account to civilians and it's not only in South Africa.
All over the world, they don't like to account to civilians. It's the nature of soldiers all over the world. In fact, sometimes you find that soldiers have a low opinion of civilians. They think that they can do things. Now we have come up with that but if you look at the past, the Defence Force in the past was a law unto itself. That was what was happening in this country. It was completely a law unto itself. It was untouchable. That was why, even with the budget, they did not account for it and they did as they liked with the money.
We have to change that situation, and changing old habits is not one of the easiest things. We are dealing with issues where things disappear but if you look into that, you will see that on that score it's become smaller and smaller. I mean, there were ridiculous things where you will find that we send money to Burundi and when it comes back, some of that money is fake so a change had been made.
We have tried to tighten all those things and we are moving. But, as I am saying, we are dealing with a department and you must realise that the Department of Defence is very big. In fact, it is like a government on its own.
There is no department that does not exist in Defence. Justice, health, social order, social development, police departments, etc, are all there. Also, if you look at the services, we've got three military services. The fourth one is the health services. They all run on their own model. So it's a very complicated department and to change what is wrong is not as easy as we would like it to be.
That is why, as I said, we would be lying if we said that things are going to be sorted out overnight because it's a very complicated department. I've already told you about the lack of accountability and where it comes from, but of course, you must understand that these days it's not easy to always blame those of the past.
Even those of today quickly learn and you will find that it is not only people from the past who were involved in the SA Defence Force who are involved in some of these things. Even the new guys, some of them coming in from outside or some of them who have just joined now quickly learn because, normally, in life it's very easy to learn bad habits.
Incentives to prevent exodus of senior prosecutors to the magistracy
147. Mr S Shiceka (ANC) asked the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development:
Whether there are any incentives to prevent the exodus of senior prosecutors to the magistracy; if not, why not; if so, what incentives?