A worker sweeps the street as members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association stand guard at the ANC’s headquarters in the Johannesburg CBD. Picture: Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Johannesburg - The 2 500-strong group of Liberation Struggle War Veterans are resolute in their demand for a one-off payment of R10.5 billion in reparations, amounting to R4.2 million per individual veteran, as part of their submissions on Monday on the proposed military pension legislation.
Aside from this, the former soldiers, who fought during apartheid for the freedom of black people in South Africa, are also demanding the government pay a pension of R36 million per annum, which translates into R15 000 a month for each of its members.
Last year, disgruntled members of the group held two ministers and a deputy minister hostage during a failed negotiations meeting at the Saint George Hotel in Irene in Tshwane.
In its submissions on the pension legislation, members of the group were also irked by the government’s failure to address the plight of veterans and their families. This was despite a presidential declaration to that effect.
The group members further decried the fact that the government had also not complied with promises it made in a consensus document that laid out a series of mutually agreed areas needing attention. Other failed promises included the integration of the country’s liberation heroes into the police service and the SA National Defence Force.
As far back as October 2021, the government started talking about crafting a pension policy for military veterans. This included a draft bill to amend the Military Veterans Act to deal with some of the discrepancies in the bill, such as the definition of “military veteran”, the provision of health-care benefits to the dependants of military veterans, and means-testing criteria.
Other commitments then included reviewing the Special Pension Act, working on presidential pardons, expunging the criminal records of some group members, providing social relief of distress grants and housing for group members, involving some group members in socio-economic activities, repatriating veteran remains, erecting monuments in host countries and memorialising fallen heroes, supporting the education of the children of combatants, and providing land for farming and human settlements.
In May last year, the group said in a media statement that their full list of demands included pensions, special pensions, housing, and educational and other benefits.
The group’s lawyers, Phosa Loots Inc, then said: “Our clients have reiterated their instruction to us to proceed with a class action to compel the government to compensate them for reparations, pensions, special pensions, housing, (and) educational and other benefits due to them for having put their lives on the line and physically fought apartheid and ushered in democracy 28 years ago.”
In their submission on Monday, the lawyers added: “It is important to note that since the government aims at rolling out pensions before the verification process has been concluded, those verified after the implementation of the pensions will have to be paid retrospectively.”
Phosa Loots Inc also referred to a letter dated February 8 last year in which the group had “requested the presidential task team to work on the conclusion of this process”.
President Cyril Ramaphosa had then “stated in Parliament on more than one occasion that all military benefits (would) be paid by 1 April 2022”.
In response, the group had demanded that there be “consensus on the figures the government proposes to settle reparations and other military benefits, as well as the process and its duration”.
In another letter issued on December 6 last year, the group provided the director-general in the department of military veterans with a list of claimants for which they were mandated to act.
“We therefore, as a matter of urgency, request (and) implore you to indicate possible dates for a meeting with your department to provide further submissions (on) the proposed military pension legislation or any other concerns that may be relevant at the time,” the group said through its lawyers on Monday.
On December 22 last year, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Thandi Modise acknowledged it was the government’s “intention and wish to disburse the pension payouts by the 1st December 2022”, but the funds had not been budgeted for.
However, Modise then said that “consistent with our constitutional injunction to redress our past and honour those that fought for freedom, the Military Veterans (Act) was enacted in 2011, directing the government to roll out socio-economic benefits to the community of military veterans”.
“It is regrettable that the military veterans’ pension had not been budgeted for in previous years. Through the intervention of the presidential task team, priority will be given to members of the former non-statutory forces as the main target group to access this benefit. This military veterans’ pension will redress the imbalances of the past and bring to the realisation a benefit that is provided for in the Military Veterans Act,” she said.