Honourable Chairperson

Honourable Minister, Deputy Minister, Members and Respected Guests, especially our Military Veterans

The Department of Military Veterans (DMV) for the years 2014/15 sees a significant increase of 43, 5% in budget allocation for R351.4 million to R504.2 million.

However, a ship without a captain is certainly not the ideal scenario to navigate the stormy waters of this fairly new department, which is still under construction and currently in shambles.

To add to these woes, the Deputy Director-General, who is responsible for Corporate Services, has been placed on special leave with his Director-General, the Accounting Officer, as a direct result of an internal audit report.

Indeed, we would like this investigation to be concluded speedily and matter be resolved by the Department.

The Department’s funds have been skewed since inception in favour of administrative tasks and personnel. The concern is the capacity and competency of these employees who have failed to complete so many fundamental tasks, which has a direct bearing on the delivery of services and benefits to military veterans.

Of course, benefits and services could not be delivered because National Treasury had to transfer R300 million, subject to approval of Military Veterans Benefits Regulations. The late transfer caused a major portion of this amount to be carried over to this financial year. The Budget and Expenditure Report 31/12/2013 therefore indicated 20% expenditure of budget.

These fundamental tasks include, inter alia:

    Norms and Standards
    Policies
    Regulations ( A process with limited PC and public participation)
    Frameworks and Guidelines
    SLAs, MOUs and MOAs (Govt Dept’s, Public Entities and Private Companies)
    Systems
    Databases and CPRs, both NSF and SF
    Employment of consultants to some of these tasks because of lack of internal capacity.

Bloated allocations for compensation of employees, travel and subsistence, food and entertainment, consumables including office supplies, consultants, training and development, advertising and communications are of great concern. No operational plans or business plans were presented, which would serve as a basis for these allocations.

The maximum benefit of these allocations must be in the interest of deserving military veterans and their dependents, and not to fund a bloated administration. We would like to see a highly effective, efficient, lean administration run by a highly competent, professional mean machine. No bells and frills!

The Minister would do well to focus on transforming the Military Veterans Act to migrate the functions of the Department of Military Veterans to The Presidency to reduce the administrative cost of establishing a new department and to improve the delivery of benefits to military veterans by improving the coordination of various state departments responsible for delivering benefits.

Currently, Data Base has 56 666 veterans of which 14 539 have been verified.  This can largely be ascribed to progress in finalising the applicants to the Military Veterans Data Base.

It is highly problematic that this fundamental tool is ineffectively managed and only includes 35% of the known military veterans of this great nation.

Minister, on what basis are some included and some excluded?

Given the ruling party in government’s track record, it wouldn’t surprise me if this 35% are only the politically connected.

Minister, there should be only ONE database, where all Military Veterans are registered. Subsequently, it must identify those Veterans who qualify for the various benefits. This is also informed by any benefits, which were afforded to veterans previously by government agencies, public entities and private sector entities to Section 6 of Military Veterans Act 18 of 2012. Where is all this information? What has transpired ever since?

In conclusion, I wish to state unambiguously; this Ministry and DMV need to clean up its act appoint effective, efficient staff and employ proper systems and protocols in order to deliver on its mandate. It must ensure decentralisation is effected immediately and its communication and market strategy is implemented.

Minister, these are the men and women who have fought for our country and it is simply unacceptable that they are summarily neglected. How can we not take care of these veterans?

Minister, do better.

Thank you.

Issued by the DA