Johannesburg - The Department of Military Veterans has underspent its budget by R41.5 million despite calls from the ANC to give more attention to the ex-soldiers in non-statutory forces.
The under-expenditure is contained in the report of the auditor-general and forms part of the department’s annual report.
The auditor-general found that the department underspent by R41.5m on its capital expenditure.
This flies in the face of the ANC’s discussion documents for its National General Council next month, calling for the government to ramp up its services to former MK soldiers and other non-statutory forces.
“The social and economic exclusion of military veterans, in particular non-statutory forces, has not received priority attention from government departments,” the document states. “While the Department of Military Veterans has been established, there is a need to escalate the provision of a comprehensive basket of services (social and economic) by all state departments and parastatals.
“Hence the Department of Military Veterans must be strengthened to set up mechanisms to monitor the implementation and enforce compliance by all structures in line with the Military Veterans Act,” it adds.
Outlining its achievements for the previous financial year, the department said progress had been made to address the plight of former soldiers.
It said it had linked up with the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) to manage its social relief programme for former soldiers.
The department said more than 690 military veterans had accessed its social relief of distress programme through Sassa.
In addition, 6 795 former soldiers had been granted access to healthcare services.
The department was also providing bursaries to military veterans and their dependants.
The Military Veterans Department rescued nine houses owned by former soldiers that were about to be repossessed by the banks, it said.
It added that almost R32m was sent to the Department of Human Settlements to build houses for about 2 000 former soldiers.
About 2 500 military veterans had been given skills training and development on various programmes.
About 1 700 veterans had benefited from job opportunities in the year under review.
The Star