Absent Military Veterans DG causes beneficiaries to suffer

17 April 2023

The Department of Military Veterans has had no Director General nor Acting Director General for more than a month.

The DA will be writing to the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans demanding her to appoint the Acting Director General in the department forthwith.

This department is in charge of managing benefits for military veterans and their families as well as managing databases that are used to distribute these benefits. The department has failed to finalise this National Database for military veterans since 2011, despite the Presidential Task Team intervention that was led by the former Deputy President, David Mabuza.

On March 8 2023, the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Thandi Modise, suspended the Director General of the Military Veterans. She is yet to appoint a replacement. In the meantime the department with a budget of more than R70 million is headless.

The absence of the Director General or Acting Director General in this department will continue to impact negatively on service delivery of benefits such as a pension, housing, access to health, burial support, education, facilitation of employment placements, subsidisation of public transport as well as compensation of military veterans who sustained disabling injuries resulting from their participation in the military activities.

Eligible deserving military veterans and their dependents are suffering the consequences of the failing government. From 2011 to now, the minister has had food on her table every day, while some military veterans are starving. The ANCs failure to implement the Military Veterans Act of 2011 is one of the main contributors of this crisis.

One of the key issues is that this department is currently experiencing a huge challenge where several military veterans have been allocated houses without being vetted and not appearing on the Military Veterans National Database assisted by corrupt officials in the DMV department while deserving military veterans are ignored.

Military Veterans are not getting their pensions due to the failure of the DMV to finalize the pension policy since 2011. Military Veterans are still struggling to access health facilities due to the failure of the department to provide transport as provided in the Act. The call centre is dysfunctional despite intervention by the Presidential Task Team.

The only solution South Africans have, to improve the lives of military veterans and their dependents is to remove the ANC from power in 2024.

The total disregard for the lives and livelihood of military veterans in South Africa under the ANC government is inexcusable. The DA will demand that Pension Policy is finalised with immediate effect.

Issued by Maliyakhe Shelembe, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Affairs, 17 April 2023