Canthover, you've hit the nail on the head.
The Minister is to blame for the situation the SACAA currently finds themselves in. I mean, where in the world have you heard of any Regulating Authority having so many "Acting" positions? Because nothing is permanent, no one takes or makes any firm decisions. They just drift along and go with the flow.
The calibre of expertise employed by the SACAA borders on the pathetic. Because there were never any real "transfer of skill" in aviation in the old days, the Minister have now decided to try and do it in months. The result is that more and more unqualified people are appointed to key positions in the SACAA with disasterous results. Out of desperation they've even brought back former employees on a contract basis. What does that prove? That they can't find suitably qualified people, but are not willing to employ suitably qualified white people, because all white people are racist, they hate blacks, they will undermine them, lead them up the garden path, con them and will NEVER teach them anything. Wow, thats white people for you as per the definition in the ANC's manifest.
For example! There is no Grade 1 or DE "affirmative appointment" in the employ of the SACAA. So if the white faces there go, where does the standards go? Is Mr. Pule whatsename with 250 hours on R22's & R44's going to conduct ATP standard tests? Somehow I don't think so.
Take airworthiness. There are consistent arguments between black and white and NOBODY really knows what's going on. None of those inspectors/mechanics/officials have been able to work out something as basic as an Airworthiness Certificate. There's Standard & Restricted. Now also NTC Part 96 with "authority to fly" and none of those clowns there really know the difference. There are enough examples of pure f
ups with Ex Denel Pumas now working in the commercial sector and others. One can only but wonder what's going through the minds of those clowns.
And you're right. All the mess ups do reflect badly on SA registered aircraft operating outside the borders of South Africa. Just recently the Commissioner and some of his cronies had to travel into Africa to go and explain to that country's CAA how they work and how they issue airworthiness certificates, because the ICAO standards that that country apply, did not rhyme with what the idiots at the SACAA had in mind. The result? Mumblings of +&*%#@ South Africans.
Its sad but tooooo true. The SACAA, just like the SAAF, is now in an advanced state of the death spiral.
