Army fraudsters get promoted
2008-07-11 09:51
Erika Gibson
Pretoria - Two senior army officers, who were implicated in exam fraud leading to one of the men being found guilty of fraud, will now be promoted to general.
The army has announced its list of 35 senior appointments and promotions for general.
Colonel N Yengeni, brother of the former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni, and other students were suspected of copying each other's work in 1999.
Colonel Sithabiso Mahlobo, former Commanding Officer of the Joint Support Base in Durban, was found guilty of exam fraud and demoted to the rank of major in 2002. The military appeal court later commuted the punishment and he was made a lieutenant colonel.
As brigadier general, Mahlobo will become the commanding officer of the 46th SA Brigade in Johannesburg - one of the army's two brigades involved in peacekeeping operations overseas.
Colonel Yengeni on July 1 became general in the army's corporate services.
Senior command and staff course
He was one of 14 senior officers who were suspected of copying down one another's work while completing their senior command and staff course in 1999.
After an investigation into their alleged transgressions, the college decided against giving them their course certificates.
The students then had a lawyer's letter delivered to the Minister of Defence, Mosiuoa Lekota, in which he was threatened with court action should the students not receive their certificates.
The army awarded the certificates to the great dismay of the rest of the students. At the time, it was alleged that the group had all been earmarked for positions of command and had to pass the course to receive their promotions.
Mahlobo and two other senior officers were found guilty of copying one another's work two years later.
Brigadier General Lenox Matyila, one of the other two, was initially sentenced to dismissal from the army, but it was later commuted to a lowering of rank.
During South Africa's first peacekeeping mission in the DRC in 2001, Mahlobo was involved in several disagreements with his subordinates. A special army conflict management team had to be sent in to sort things out.
Demotion, promotion
After Mahlobo's demotion in rank he was quickly again promoted to colonel and he will become Brigadier General from January 2009.
Brigadier General Piet Burger was in turn appointed Director: Peace Support in the Joint Operation Centre. He was put on compulsory leave a few years ago by the air force after he was held responsible for leaking information about a plane load of weapons for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti.
Burger was at the time in charge of air force command, the only place where the information could have been leaked from, an investigative team had found - although there was no proof to support the allegations.
Colonel Norman Minne, a veteran combat pilot, will be promoted to Brigadier General and Director of Air Force Acquisitions.
Military expert Helmoed-Römer Heitman said on Thursday that no officer who had been found guilty of an offence or fraud, belonged in the army.
"Appointing someone without integrity and who cannot be trusted to a commanding position is a slap in the face of any young, ambitious soldier."
- Beeld