Department of Military Veterans briefing on its July – September performance and expenditure; and 2014/15 Annual Report and audited financial statements

Meeting report

Major-General Lifeni Make, Acting Director General, led the Department’s presentation and directed Members to slide number five, which provided a summary of the annual report. It indicated that the Department had committed itself to achieve 25 targeted performance indicators during the 2014/15 financial year, but only 17 (68%) had been achieved. However, this represented a significant improvement on the Department’s part, and they were committed to improving this percentage in order to improve the lives of military veterans even further.

Key achievements of the Department included:

• 693 military veterans who had been able to access Social Relief of Distress (SRD) through the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) programme of the Department of Social Development;
• 6 795 veterans had been provided with access to healthcare;
• 1 803 had been provided with healthcare cards;
• 645 military veterans and their dependants had been provided with bursaries;
• Nine houses which belonged to military veterans had been rescued from repossession by banks, in line with the provisions of the regulations;
• 2 450 veterans had accessed training and skills;
• 97 cooperatives for military veterans had been registered;
• 1 700 military veterans had accessed job opportunities;

A total of R31.9 million had been transferred by the Department to the Department of Human Settlements as top-up funds for the construction of houses. During the period under review, two military veterans’ memorial plaques had been unveiled. 107 private sector companies had entered into partnership with the Department.

57 802 military veterans were listed on the National Military Veterans Database, where 21 322 personal files had been updated. 1 343 military veterans had accessed counselling services, and 160 deserving military veterans had been provided with burial support.

Discussion

Mr S Esau (DA) commended the Department on the targets they had achieved, and for their overall general improvement. However, the Committee had raised concerns with the Department which they should take seriously. Military veterans were a special type of people in the country and they needed to be well looked after. Key issues had not been adequately addressed, and audit and controls were not being carried out properly. People employed in the Department needed to be competent to do their jobs, so the human resources’ report of 123 people having to do training had to be scrutinised, as it did not make sense for the Department to hire unskilled people then spend money on training them. With the skills audit under way, the Committee ought to receive a report on this. He asked about the long absence of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and how this had hindered the growth of the Department, as its finances had not been handled properly as a result.

The Committee had noted that transfers and payments had been made which were not authorised. This equated to unauthorised spending and reflected a lack of adequate planning within the Department. He also enquired about the hearings which had been delayed and not taking place as a result of the slow pace of the Department in dealing with them. He added that suspensions -- where people were paid while sitting at home and doing nothing -- were an expense to the Department, so they ought to speed up the disciplinary processes in order to save costs.

Military veterans should not be undermined by the Department by not being handled properly. All the vacancies needed to be filled. The task team formulated by the Department to deal with all the outstanding issues ought to report to the Committee on its progress. It was ridiculous that the entire database would be completed only in 2019, because it was a prerequisite for all service delivery to military veterans. It meant that up until 2019, there would be military veterans who would not be receiving their benefits, which indicated a lack of service delivery on the part of government. It meant that some people benefited while others did not, which was a bad reflection on the government. He added that military veterans in rural areas were very marginalised and that spending in the provinces was generally very low, and he wanted to know why this was the case.

Mr S Marais (DA) said that his colleague had covered most of his points, but that he wanted to add that the audit findings indicted that the Department was not worthy of being described as such, as it was not properly organised. There should be consequences for non-compliance and concrete plans put in place to rectify all that had gone wrong. The absence of the Chief Financial Officer was detrimental to the Department, and in the next financial year the Department had to get a clean audit.

Mr N Khoza (EFF) said that there had been an outcry that the Department catered only for the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKVA), and that he wanted to establish if this was true or not. He also asked how the Department planned to improve and be more accessible.

Maj Gen Make said that there had been an outcry about the Act, in that it had excluded many people. There had been an engagement with the Minister to work on its amendment in order to include more people. An umbrella organisation called the South African National Veterans Association (SANVA) had recently gone to congress, and all the veterans’ associations under this banner received assistance, not only the Umkhonto we Sizwe veterans. It ought to be put on record that that was false information, because the Department existed for all veterans, not only those of the MKVA, and that there was no discrimination on the side of the Department.

He said that the Chief Financial Officer had been dismissed and that the short listing for the position had already been completed and sent to the Minister for finalisation. In terms of fulfilling their mandate, they also had Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with other departments, such as the Department of Human Settlements, which they provided with funds to allocate housing to veterans. In respect of provincial offices, they had an MOU with the Department of Public Works, but there had been a significant delay on their part in providing provincial offices. He said that this had been an on-going problem since 2012 and illustrated the point that sometimes they were delayed because they were dependent on their sister departments to achieve some of their goals.

The Chairperson thanked them for their first presentation and said that they should move on to their second one.

Preliminary Second Quarterly Report (period ending 30 September 2015)

Maj Gen Make provided the Committee with a summary of their preliminary quarterly performance. The Department had committed itself to achieve 15 targeted performance indicators during the 2014/15 financial year. Of the 15, ten (63%) had been were achieved.

He said that the Department had had challenges on issues surrounding under-spending and not having a Chief Financial Officer, but that both of these challenges were being addressed.

Discussion

Mr Esau wanted to know what the reason for under-spending was.

Maj Gen Make said that the matter of payments had been escalated to the level of the National Treasury because payments had been made which sometimes had not reached their intended recipients because they had changed their accounts, or given incorrect ones. This had led to the budget reflecting unauthorised payments, when these were in fact all errors. It had also amounted to under-spending, because the money was not actually leaving the Department to reach the beneficiaries. They were working on fixing this problem, because it meant that some veterans were not receiving their benefits. The issue of the Chief Financial Officer had been addressed in the first presentation, along with other issues.

The Chairperson thanked the Members and the delegation, and said that they had done justice to the meeting.

The meeting was adjourned