Question NW143 to the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans

Reply:

(a) (i) In each of the nine provinces, a Provincial Coordinator and Assistant have been appointed and they are placed in provinces. The challenge for the Department of Military Veterans (DMV) is the reliance on the Department of Public Works (DPW) for the procurement of office space. Since 2013 the DMV has been engaging with the DPW on office space.

In the interim, the DMV has submitted requests to various entities for the provision of office space. At present, the provincial coordinators are housed in various venues.

• Eastern Cape: The Provincial Offices are currenlty housed at the East London City Hall
• Free State: Temporarily housed in the DoD sick bay at Tempe Military Base in Bloemfontein
• Gauteng: Temporarily housed at the DMV head office in Pretoria
• KwaZulu-Natal: The Provincial Coordinators are housed in a very small office at the sickbay in Pietermaritzburg
• Mpumalanga: Temporarily housed in an DoD military sick bay in Nelspruit
• Limpopo: Temporarily housed at the military base in Polokwane
• Northern Cape: Housed at the military base in Kimberley
• North West: Provincial Offices are temporarily in the old Premier’s Offices,  Mafikeng
• Western Cape: Office of the Director-General (10 floor, Parliament Towers, Plein Street, Cape Town)

The DPW has reported that office space has been now sourced and secured in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North West Provinces. The DMV national Office will visit the spaces during April 2016 to assess compliance with the DMV specifications and to determine occupancy date. Once this has been established, the DMV will commence with providing additional human resources and required office resources at these offices. The DMV shall do the same in other provinces as space becomes available.

(b) The underspend on provincial offices in the 2014-15 financial year was a result of the lack of adequate capacity in provincial offices.