There were plenty scams on this in the last Two Years. Most asked R80 to process your form for you, claiming that you qualify for R30 000-00 benefits.
They kept stating deadline, deadline to pull people to come and give their sensitive info out at a fee. Mmmmmmm
The debate on benefits for veterans was discussed in Parliament for a long time.
Anybody that think they will just get a little windfall, no I don't think so. They are purely going to look at your situation and will make available at no cost things like, free military health care, assistance for disabled veterans or their family's etc.
Below are some articles regarding this:
Thousands of military veterans have been thrown a lifeline with a possible R1.5 billion likely to be allocated for socio-economic support by the government.
The Department of Military Veterans has asked the National Treasury to allocate these funds in a roll-out of benefits for veterans over the next three years.
This will see eligible military veterans being provided with benefits including medical care, housing and financial support for the education of their dependants.
The Military Veterans Act says military veterans include those who served in the statutory and non-statutory armed forces.
This will include former members of the SA Defence Force (SADF) and those from the former liberation movements including Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla).
Military Veterans director-general Tsepe Motumi said the roll-out of these support services would be biased towards those who were historically disadvantaged. But it would also provide enough support for those from the former SADF.
“Those who were in the SADF used to receive salaries and benefits, while combatants from liberation movements did not enjoy the same benefits.
“But these services are meant for all them, with the aim of alleviating the suffering of many military veterans who fought to ensure our country is where it is today,” said Motumi.
Support for the military veterans was an urgent matter as many of them were living under severe conditions without basic services like medical care, he said.
“Many combatants were not integrated into the SANDF after 1994 for various reasons, including physical suitability.
“For many of them, life has been challenging because of unemployment and the lack of sufficient support for them.
“This will be urgently attended to and we hope that they can come forward and declare themselves to be able to access these benefits,” said Motumi.
The department has already established a database with the names of 57 000 military veterans who are eligible to access the support.
On Monday, the department will start the second phase of the process of updating its database.
It has called on military veterans and their families to come forward to be registered on the database.
This will enable the veterans to receive, among other things, medical care from military hospitals or centres in the areas where they live.
The department is also in discussions with the Department of Housing about the provision of housing for the veterans. But Motumi also admitted that the roll-out was not without its challenges.
As a relatively new department, the issue of capacity was a major hurdle, he said.
There were still many vacancies, especially senior posts, which still need to be filled at the department for it to be fully operational.
“We are capacitated, but not enough.
“We have been using the resources of the defence force for most of the work that has been done.
“But we believe by the end of this financial year (in 2013), we will be fully operational and sufficiently capacitated. It could also be sooner.
“We will need more money but the R1.5 billion that we have requested from the Treasury is specifically for the roll-out of benefits to the military veterans.
“It does not include departmental requirements,” he said.
The department does not have its own building. Motumi said they were expecting the Department of Public Works to provide them with premises.
“That impacts on the extent to which we are accessible to military veterans and how effective we become, but we are hoping that will be sorted out.
“We appeal to those military veterans out there who have not yet come forward to do so.
“This will improve their lives because it creates access to services that they were not able to get before.
“The compilation of this database is vital to this process because if we do not know about them, we cannot assist them,” said Motumi.
Further details regarding the process can be found on the department’s website.
mogomotsi.magome@inl.co.za
Pretoria News
2012-04-04
Department of Military Veterans
The Military Veterans Act came into effect on 1 April 2012.
The bill was signed into law in December last year. It was tabled in Parliament in January 2011.
Public hearings on the bill were held in Parliament in March 2011.
The act is designed to:
• Restore the capability of veterans with disabilities and improve their quality of life
• Improve the definition of beneficiaries to make it inclusive
• Clearly spell out the support and benefits to be provided to veterans
• Establish relevant institutions to give effect to the provisions
The legislation also seeks to:
• Establish an advisory council on military veterans
• Establish a military veterans appeal board
• Set out the responsibilities of the department’s director-general in respect of the military veterans association and its functions
• Set out the department’s powers and responsibilities
The act also contains a new definition on a military veteran.
A military veteran is any South African citizen “who rendered service to any of the military organisations, statutory and non-statutory, which were involved on all sides of South Africa’s liberation war from 1960 to 1994; or served in the Union Defence Force before 1961; or became members of the new SANDF after 1994; and has completed his or her military training and no longer performs military service, and has not been dishonourably discharged from that military organisation”.
Veterans are to be subjected to a means test in order to establish eligibility.
In addition, assistance will only be provided to a veteran’s dependants if the veteran was legally obliged to support them.
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The act is legite, but I am not sure if it is a good thing to simply go and give all your personal detail to these institutions.
http://www.saarmourassociation.co.za...istributed.pdf This document looks legite. However, Given the fact that this should be top news, I can not find the document, nor recent news regarding this on the Department of Defence website.
http://www.dod.mil.za
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Originally Posted by Gregg Munstermann
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