22 January 2020
The Department of Military Veterans is once again committing to accelerate service delivery to military veterans and their dependents. By so doing the Department has decided to decentralise some benefits, with a pilot project mainly focusing on Education support. The DMV has in previous years served its constituency through its Pretoria Head Office, and this has proved to be a burden to a majority of military veterans who live far from the main office.
To mitigate this burden, the Department has decided to start decentralising benefits to provinces, starting with Education support as the most sought after benefit. Information that relates to both Basic and Tertiary Education support benefit is now available in all the 9 provinces, including some outcome letters for the year 2020. The Department is addressing infrastructure challenges in provinces that are without offices. Requisite support has been sent to all provinces to ease the process of decentralisation. The decentralisation started on 14 January 2020, with other benefits gradually moving to provinces as they are being capacitated.
The Department has noted that there are still outstanding invoices and some payments for both tertiary and basic education. These are being processed as a matter of urgency, wherein some officials are visiting schools in all 9 provinces to accelerate the process. Support for finalisation of payment of all outstanding fees has been sought from some provincial departments, wherein a request for transfer of school fees to provinces is in progress.
In processing the 2020 school fees the DMV has engaged Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Free State and Eastern Cape provincial governments to process school fees payments for its dependants who are in public and independent subsidised schools.
In a bid to align its tertiary education support threshold, the Department has benchmarked with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). A decision has been taken for the academic year 2020 to increase the threshold to R88 600, 00.
The Department will not commit to support any learner/student for academic year 2020, if the military veteran has not produced the unabridged birth certificate, with insertion or legal proof of guardianship for the dependent. If and when a military veteran is found to have benefited illegally or has misrepresented information, the matter will be treated as fraud and handed over to the relevant law enforcement authorities for further action.
The Department will continue to work together with key stakeholders to honor, restore dignity and empower Military Veterans for Nation Building.
Ms Phumeza Dzuguda
Department Spokesperson
Cell: 076 510 7430
Email: phumeza.qaqa@dmv.gov.za
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