WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-12-03 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[Good stuff. Jan]
By Natasha Joseph
The National Nuclear Regulator is battling to keep employees, has fallen behind on equity targets, and risks its requests for increased funding being turned down by the Treasury because of its “extremely problematic” underspending.
Its report for 2006/07 – described by the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy as “horror reading” – also highlighted security at nuclear facilities as “a major concern”.
The regulator was “generally happy with security arrangements”, but said a recent armed attack at Pelindaba, west of Pretoria, was “very worrying”, said the report, presented by the regulator’s chief executive, Maurice Magugumela, to the portfolio committee on minerals and energy.
The regulator ended its financial year with an operating surplus of R18,8-million, largely because of vacancies. Magugumela said the vacancy rate was “around 15 percent to 17 percent”.
A security officer at Pelindaba was wounded when four armed men stormed into the control room on November 8.
It later emerged that another group of armed men had tried to enter Pelindaba at the same time, but had fled when spotted by guards.
Three people were arrested the following week.
According to the minutes of the portfolio committee’s meeting on November 21, Magugumela told MPs that Pelindaba’s fence had been penetrated although it was “electrified and alarmed” and the alarm or camera system “should have picked up the interference”.
In a summary of the meeting published by the parliamentary monitoring group, Magugumela acknowledged that this was “a high number” and “unacceptable”.
Eleven employees had left the regulator during the year and only 10 had come into the organisation, he said.
The regulator had increased its salaries to be “more competitive”. Keeping employees was “crucial” because when staff left it was “almost impossible to recruit someone of a similar calibre”.
Turning to equity targets, Magugumela said women accounted for 33 percent of the staff and black men and women 60 percent.
“Much needs to be done about … performance in appointing previously disadvantaged individuals,” he said in the summary.
Dominique Gilbert, acting national co-ordinator of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy, described the regulator’s annual report as “horror reading”.
The report “boils down to … the (regulator) admitting it is completely understaffed and overwhelmed by the prospect of handling the government’s proposed nuclear energy plan”, Gilbert said.
“There is no obvious way for how it is going to cope (with the proposed plan). Reading through the minutes and the report, it’s almost like a cry for respite.”
It was to Magugumela’s “credit” that he had been “honest about the challenges” in the portfolio committee meeting.
“That (the regulator) has come out and said things aren’t so rosy is quite remarkable,” Gilbert said.
It was a matter of “huge concern” how the regulator would cope with “underskilled people (working with) something as critical and potentially deadly as nuclear installations”.
Magugumela was in a National Nuclear Regulator meeting on Thursday and not available to respond to questions. His assistant said only Magugumela was authorised to talk to journalists.
Repeated attempts to contact the Department of Minerals and Energy yielded no comment, and the SA Nuclear Energy Corporation did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.