Spotlight on military veterans
frank assessment of these limitations and the organisational and policy contexts within which they have happened, in order for us to take bold and decisive remedial steps that ensure solutions in the immediate, medium and long term, to stabilise the department and its operations.
It was my feeling therefore that such action must first be based on the appreciation of inputs from the key clients of the department, the veterans, on what their real experience of our service as a department has been.
It is for this reason that we have convened this urgent indaba, with the hope that the deliberations here should constitute the baseline diagnosis that will inform the areas of the intervention by the Turnaround team.
In 2007, the ruling party, after much deliberation that actually started in its 2005 general council, took a firm resolution that to pay focused attention to issues affecting military veterans, a Ministry for Military Veterans should be established.
Following the general elections of 2009, the resolution was then given practical expression through the appointment of a Ministerial Task Team to look at the establishment of the department and consider a policy framework for the work of the department.
A combined Ministry for both Defence and Military Veterans was already designated and a decision made to establish two separate departments under the ministry. Following the work of the Task Team, the Military Veterans Act was finally promulgated in 2011. By this time, however, the department had already been established in 2010.
This situation had meant that, at the point of establishing the department, the issues relating to its legal mandate had not been finalised. As a result, a misalignment occurred between the organisational design and its mission. This is one of the fundamental problems facing the department today.
Without a proper visioning and design exercise, any determination of channels of service, HR requirements, budget and systems can never be responsive to the business requirements as defined in the act. We need to correct this
‘Those we represent have already waited too long and cannot afford another talk shop’
serious anomaly.
We need to do so while taking into account that the department has to continue functioning and delivering to its main client as this cannot stop. We are therefore faced with a situation where we have to fix a moving train and we need to determine where the quick wins should be, while stabilising the organisation for long-term effectiveness and efficiency.
This is why an indaba is critical, because in order to succeed there needs to be absolute agreement and understanding of what the problems are; what interventions should be made, by whom and by when.
We need to ask the pertinent questions, and then answer them honestly.
1. Are the structural and policy choices we made since 2010 supporting the government’s commitment for a focused and dedicated institution capable of servicing the needs of our veterans?
2. Given the past from which we integrated to form one SANDF, can our veterans be defined as a single homogenous entity with similar challenges and shared interests? Have we recognised the reality of our past, and considered the need for a period of redressing the imbalances and unequal conditions of various categories of our veterans, especially those from the NSFs.
3. Who qualifies as a veteran? Should we differentiate between military veterans and war veterans?
4. Are the current institutional arrangements adequate, including the channels of delivery that we are currently engaged in? In this regard, do we need a department that directly delivers services to various categories of veterans or one that co-ordinates delivery by other agencies?
5. Who must fund this mandate and is it currently affordable for the fiscus.
6. What should be the role of the SANDF and its current arrangements for support to veterans from the former statutory forces.
7. Who must be served through the Department of Military Veterans, and how should this impact on its structure, footprint and resourcing?
8. What should be the functional role of Samva and member associations in supporting the welfare of veterans?
9. How do we protect the department from the impact of the political dynamics of our past that continue to be relevant in shaping our understanding of the mandate and tasks at hand?
Having considered these and other related challenges, we should then agree on what needs to be done first, and then put in place a realistic programme to build a sustainable solution.
The responsibility of society to give due recognition to, and to take care of the wellbeing of those who served selflessly for our democracy and freedoms, cannot be compromised.
There is no question about whether the mandate is relevant or not, but we need to match our commitment with the requisite capacity. That is the challenge we need to address, starting with discussions at this indaba.
We must conduct the business of this indaba, in full cognisance of the fact that those veterans that we represent, have already waited too long and cannot afford another talk shop or simply a shouting match that ends without a concrete and measurable way forward. Their impatience is warranted, well justified.
I am not expecting that discussions here will be easy, but I believe that if we base our contribution on the need to find working solutions, we will leave here with a package of solutions that will benefit the multitudes of veterans out there, some of whom are losing their lives before they can see the benefit of the work we are doing.
This is not my indaba and it is for this reason that I have simply placed on the agenda some of the issues we should find answers for and not proposed any solutions. I am looking forward to you making most of the inputs and we are here to listen to you.
I will share with you some of the immediate changes that will be happening in the department as part of the process towards establishing the Turnaround which should be in place at the beginning of next month. I will outline some of these at the end of our engagements in this indaba.
So feel free to raise all of the issues that you consider important for our attention, without fear and holding back, but with the requisite discipline and courtesy to allow everybody a chance to exercise the same right, including if they hold a difference of opinion.
I am sure that as soldiers, all of us, we have it within us to engage in these discussions, however difficult, in an orderly but robust manner. I thank you.