Justin Pearce
MORE than 300 candidates who were trained overseas last year with a view to bringing the South African diplomatic corps into the post-apartheid era are still waiting to take up posts with the Department of Foreign Affairs.
This is in spite of the fact that the diplomatic corps has been left understaffed by the opening of new diplomatic contacts by South Africa.
Frustrated former trainees who spoke to the Weekly Mail & Guardian said they were being barred from the DFA by a conservative bureaucracy which is intent on perpetuating itself.
A total of 320 candidates were trained in Egypt, India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, at the expense of the governments of the host countries and the European Union.
While the trainees were not promised that the training would guarantee them a place in the diplomatic corps after the April elections, all of those who spoke to the WM&G said they had been given to believe they had a strong chance of qualifying for posts.
The spokesman for both the Ministry and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Jacques Malan, said the DFA supports the idea that the diplomatic corps should be made more representative of South African society. He said the applications were being processed by the Public Service Commission.
Overseas training would be considered “appropriate experience” when job applications were considered, but there had been no commitment between the ANC and either the Department or the Public Service Commission that the trainees would be employed.
However, in an interview in August, Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad named the deployment of the foreign-trained applicants as one of the issues which his department would have to confront in order to make it more representative.
In June, Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo promised that the urgent review of the diplomatic corps requested by President Nelson Mandela would begin “soon”.