Suspended soldiers earn R72m

2010-09-07 08:21

Erika Gibson, Beeld

Pretoria - The approximately 1 000 soldiers who were sent on compulsory leave after a violent protest at the Union Buildings a year ago have since earned about R72m in salaries.

In December they also received large pay increases of at least 60% - which they had protested for - along with their working colleagues.

If the soldiers had been prosecuted in a special military court, the case would have been over months ago, Pikkie Greeff of the SA National Defence Force Union said on Monday.

Dragging on

But the process has been dragging on for 12 months. The legal argument in the case has also changed from whether the soldiers were guilty of misconduct, to whether Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu used correct and legal dismissal processes.

Even after the verdict, the soldiers will still be “innocent” because the case has nothing to do with their behaviour, said Greeff.

“Rather than following a military legal process, Sisulu decided at the time to summarily fire all the soldiers. I suspect this military legal process was avoided because there was probably very little actual evidence against each of the soldiers.

“The case has now been placed on the North Gauteng High Court role for the second week in November.

“Should the court agree with the union that the process had been illegal, the defence force will probably face a string of civil cases.

Hasty actions

“And then 1 000 soldiers’ working time and salaries would have been wasted for over a year due to hasty actions.”

The “suspended” soldiers are mainly from the infantry, of whom most come from Zeerust, Middelburg (Mpumalanga), Mafikeng, Johannesburg and Pretoria.

During the soccer World Cup soldiers had to be brought from the Western Cape to Gauteng to provide back-up in the absence of their suspended colleagues.