Chair, the ACDP notes the third regional South African Young Water Professionals conference will take place at the University of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape in July this year. The conference aims to further career development and young professional capacities, encouraging discourse on current and future water concerns. We welcome this initiative.
I heard the hon Minister briefly mentioning the recruitment of 160 people, which sounds like a move in the right direction. Is it true that most engineers in the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs at the moment are in their late 50s and 60s, with very few younger engineers to pass institutional knowledge to? Even if engineers are employed now, a minimum of 10 years or an ideal of 15 to 20 years would be needed to adequately transfer skills. So, unless experienced engineers come back after 65, the institutional knowledge that we do have will be lost. For experienced engineers to continue after the age of 65, it may be necessary to give them contracts of longer than two years and for the decision to be taken at the departmental rather than ministerial level. Do we have relevant incentives in place to entice this mature expertise to stay and mentor others? But, of course, first others must be employed. Are we doing enough to attract young people to this field? Are we headhunting outside South Africa?
Because personnel from level 13 upward are subject to ministerial approval and a noticeable lack of in-depth scientific knowledge and skills is evident, the perception exists that skills and expertise are not the primary criteria in these appointments. What are we doing to change this? Has the department considered that the barrier to attracting skills could be the fact that there are only two ranks for engineers, namely production and chief engineer? Apparently there used to be four and that provided greater opportunity for recognition and promotion.
I am told it can take 36 years to get to the top, according to the present system, which disadvantages existing staff in relation to newcomers that we would be headhunting. In years gone by, chief engineers had 25 years, or more experience; a new entrant to chief engineer now only needs six years' experience. This can be demoralising for the existing staff and probably should be taken into consideration.
What is the situation regarding salaries at present? How competitive are they compared to what is being offered by the private sector, for example? In one province, after advertising for production level engineers for 18 months, they were unable to attract a single engineer with professional status. We are told that not so long ago, 90 municipalities did not have a single professional water engineer and that very few of them had written operating procedures. The ACDP welcomes the new focus on correcting this situation.
We also welcome an increased number of conditional grants that will target the problems in the provinces and at local level better.
The ACDP previously raised concerns that we had not ... [Time expired.] We will be supporting this Budget Vote. Thank you. [Applause.]