Military Veterans mess — committee wants ‘dysfunctional department’ placed under administration

The parliamentary defence and military veterans committee plans to ask President Cyril Ramaphosa and Defence Minister Angie Motshekga to place the Department of Military Veterans (DMV) under administration for incompetence and lack of leadership.  

This follows a committee meeting on Wednesday, 14 May, when MPs highlighted the protracted extension of the acting director-general’s contract, several key vacancies and the department’s broken organogram.

It was ultimately committee chairperson Dakota Legoete who told MPs that the committee would write to Ramaphosa, Motshegka and the National Assembly leadership “so that it’s known that we are placing this department under administration for incompetence and insubordination”.

Committee members did not explain how placing the department under administration would work.

Motshekga’s spokesperson Onnica Kwakwa said: “The Minister is not aware of the calls for the DMV to be put under administration as she was not at the meeting today.” He said Motshekga was on government business, attending the UN Peacekeeping Ministerial meeting in Berlin.

“The minister is on record as acknowledging the difficulties faced by the DMV. These were tabled both in the portfolio committee on defence and military veterans, as well as Scopa. There are a number of interventions in place to attend to the situation, including filling … vacant posts at senior management level and tightening internal controls to deal with improving audit and other challenges … that also include ensuring military veterans access their benefits seamlessly.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, a troubling picture of key vacancies emerged. The department lacks a deputy director, director of internal audit and director of legal services, among other positions. MPs also suggested the Department of Public Service and Administration should step in to fix the department’s organogram.

This isn’t the first time issues at the DMV have been raised. In February, Motshegka told parliamentarians that when she took over the department in mid-2024, she found a “wrecked ship”.

Read more: Motshekga on military veterans department: ‘I found a wrecked ship’

Motshekga told Parliament: “For many years, it has been operating under a very poor structure, an incapacitated department… We have a situation where the entire senior management is absent… Then we have the … entire staff which sometimes is not fit for purpose.”

She also said there had been political interference when it came to implementing consequence management.