 The most important factor that negatively affects maintenance is the low and irregular pay that soldiers receive , resulting in the theft and sale of spare parts and even basic equipment to supplement their meager salaries . When not stealing spare parts and equipment , maintenance personnel often spend the better part of their duty day looking for other ways to profit . American maintenance teams working in Zaire found that providing a free lunch to the work force was a good , sometimes the only , technique to motivate personnel to work at least half of the duty day . 
