Hon Speaker, The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans,
Hon Members of Parliament,
Government is not relenting in its endeavour to improve the plight of military veterans in South Africa. Last week we were handing over thirteen decent houses to military veterans in Midvaal, Savannah City Settlement, in the Sedibeng district, thanks to the Gauteng Department of Human settlements for their consistency in honouring the SLA between the two departments. As a province, Gauteng is leading the delivery of houses to military veterans in all nine provinces.
At 883 units delivered since the commencement of this program in 2014, the next closest province at 358 is the Eastern Cape. We wish to take this opportunity to commend the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements for this exemplary performance.
With the interventions explored at the Minmec of the Minister of Human Settlements two weeks ago, I am confident that together with MECs of Human Settlements in the provinces, we will overcome the many glitches surrounding housing delivery to military veterans soon.
Honourable members, when government adopted the policy to house military veterans in 2011, it was never anticipated that a decade later there would still be military veterans who are without houses, for the simple reason that this is not a big community. Secondly, these are citizens of mature age and are not getting younger. As a result, many of them have perished waiting in the queues.
According to the records 4,253 applicants are approved for housing. Of this number, 2,083 which constitutes 49%, or almost half of them, have received their houses. It is my considered view that with the available capacity of government in the provinces to deliver houses, this remaining applicants can be housed within a relatively short period of time, if we can eliminate a number of subjective weaknesses around housing.
We intend convening a housing Indaba with military veterans’ associations to address these challenges, including the critical and urgent revision of the Regulations governing housing. This will be with a view to arrive at a determination of a realistic but purposeful deadline within which this program, the provision of housing to military veterans can and should be brought to an end. In our current APPS the target of houses to be delivered is 480 units.
Another significant achievement in the endeavour by government to restore the dignity of military veterans, is the commencement of the rollout of the Military Veterans’ Pension following the tabling of the Regulations for 30 days in Parliament as communicated by the minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Min Modise on the 22nd December 2022.
The Government Pensions Administration Agency (GPAA) deserves accolades for putting citizens first in their work. They made it possible, against all odds, for this pension to be rolled out by the 24th April 2023. They put in place all the requisite framework agreements with DMV; they established the standard operating procedures; established the Business Requirement Specification; designed the admission configuration; opened the PMG Account; created email addresses for applications and enquiries, and trained Regional Administrators, for military veterans to access this relief.
Hon members, in settlements where we have succeeded to house military veterans in significant numbers, their outcry is about the absence of incomes for livelihoods. The desire to place military veterans in jobs has not been successfully coordinated, this has been further compounded by the constraint state of our national economy and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is for this reason that the breakthrough we have finally made to introduce the military veterans’s pension is a huge achievement, thanks to the political support the PTT brought to bear on this matter.
Military veterans who are without pensions for the services rendered to our country will therefore be a thing of the past. They will now be modestly cushioned by this pension. In this regard, it has since come to light through the intervention by Hon Bantu Holomisa, that pensions of civil servants who were employed by the TBVC states, soldiers included, are mired in administrative complexities which have left some of them without any pensions. The matter stands referred by the President to the Minister of Finance for prompt attention. The ministry will monitor progress in this regard, and ensure that no military veteran is left behind, without a pension. We intend to load 4,000 recipients of this pension by the end of this financial year according to our plans. R330 million has been set aside for this purpose in this financial year.
Honourable members, while still on pensions, we must clear the misunderstanding regarding the Military Pension Act of 1976 and the MVP as introduced by DMV. In short, the two instruments are not the same and are not reconcilable. The 1976 Military Pension was not a pension in its object, it was a compensation policy for injuries incurred by soldiers during their years of service in the SADF before 1994, which was paid in modest instalments to the end of a recipient’s life. This included those who were serving their call-ups in accordance with the National Service system under the apartheid system. Pensions in SADF only accrued to members of the Permanent Force, the professional soldiers who were members of the Regular Force, at the point of exiting the system.
The above notwithstanding, there is a need nevertheless to harmonise the contemporary compensation for injuries as provided for in the military veterans act, Act no 18 of 2011, and the “1976 Military Pension Act” which is also a compensation for injuries too.
Hon members of the House, the Department of Military Veterans derives its mandate from the Military Veterans Act of 2011, which requires it to provide national policy and standards on socioeconomic support to military veterans and their dependents, including benefits and entitlements to help realise a dignified, unified empowered and self-sufficient community of military veterans.
Hon House Chair, we once again table the budget of DMV this year under the stewardship of an acting incumbent, the newly appointed Acting-DG of DMV, Vice-Admiral (Ret) Mosioa Hlongwane, who is fortunately not a stranger to this oversight committee of Parliament as Committee members have interacted with him in his previous responsibility as Chief of the South African Navy. This development is politically most regrettable, but a necessary intervention by the ministry in observing the injunctions of our administrative law to protect public interests and to advance the strategic priorities of the 6th Administration of our democratic government.
Last year when we presented our plans we pointed out that we were optimistic about prospects for meaningful advances in our work. This was because there were, and still are, several critical subjective weaknesses which we could have overcome, and will overcome. We must stick to the rule-book in order to achieve a turnaround of DMV and to regain lost time in fixing the backend of the department, in order to ratchet up the output of the front-end of the department.
We need to put in place reliable and capacitated internal audit controls, we need proper legal and labour services, we need an adequately staffed Human Resource branch, we need more planners, we need disciplined conventional supply-chain management, we need communicators, to mention some of the debilitating gaps we urgently need to attend to, in order to achieve bigger successes. This high vacancy rate was further exacerbated by suspensions which were not expeditiously addressed. Lastly, the project to buttress the efficiency of the department’s business operations through automation, which we reported about when we tabled our plans last year, is still work in progress with modest advances made.
In other areas of the department, work has been proceeding apace.
The Department has now paid out more than R6 million for compensation for injuries and trauma. The Department will ensure that the processing of the remaining applicants is fast-tracked by increasing the availability of doctors who are dedicated to provide this service with a few to finalise this program by the end of this financial year.
The extension of health services to military veterans’ dependents has been endorsed by the PTT. The implementation of this decision has not received sufficient administrative attention. The planning session of DMV agreed to convene a special workshop with SAMHS to explore modalities of delivering comprehensive health services to military veterans.
Education support has scored significant improvements however there are still structural deficiencies such as the absence of collaboration protocols with basic education in the provinces. The DMV education support program has produced over 50 graduates in the last financial year alone, including 2 medical doctors and 5 law graduates. R126 million was spent in the previous year, 2022/2023 in support of the education of children of military veterans.
Hon members, one more urgent task, as I move towards conclusion, that the Acting-DG will help us attend to expeditiously, is the convening of the long overdue conference of the umbrella body of our military veteran’s associations, SANMVA. SANMVA is one of the important enablers we need to realise the many things we must do for military veterans and with military veterans. We must commit to accomplishing this task by end of the second quarter this year.
DMV’s 2023/2024 financial year budget has increased by R224.7million from the previous year in nominal terms, and in real terms by 27.3% after adjustments for inflation. The biggest increase in nominal terms was in Programme 2 with and additional R171.8 million allocated. Programme 3 also sees a major proportional increase of R69.6 (47.15% nominal increase).
Compensation of employees remains stable and increases only marginally from R133.4 million in 2022/2023 to R134.4 million in 2023/2024.
The allocation for Training and Development increases from R28.2 million in 2022/2023 to R38 million in 2023/2024
The biggest increase in the budget allocation is in terms of Households, which increases from R214.1 million in 2022/2023 to R442.3 million in 2023/2024. This is largely due to social Benefits for military veterans that increases from R48.041 million in 2022/2023 to R344.15 million in 2023/2024.
In summary, the DMV budget for this financial year is R894,7 from R670,0 in the previous financial year. It is expected to increase at an average annual rate of 16.5% to R1.1 billion in 2025/2026. This increase is mainly due to the allocation of additional funding amounting to R839 billion for rolling out the pension benefit to military veterans and their dependents as well as R11.3 million over the same period to cover cost-of-living adjustments.
Hon House Chair, I wish to take this opportunity to thank military veterans in all our provinces, many of whom have been patient with us, many of whom have displayed the hallmark of their profession, discipline even under trying times. Their understanding is appreciated.
As we move closer to the 30th Anniversary of our Freedom Day a year from now, let us work together, as a disciplined and purposeful army with the determination to help government restore our dignity and a place of honour in our communities.
My word of appreciation goes to my Minister, Min Modise, the Chairpersons of both our oversight committees and their hard working members, the Secretary for Defence and the Chief-Of-the-Defence-Force, the Acting-DG of DMV, and the Undeterred Senior Managers of the two departments and the ministry.
I thank you
