Pretoria - The Department of Military Veterans is to donate food hampers to more than 60 members of the South African Military Veterans Association (SANMVA) on Friday.
The department and MTN have undertaken to distribute 500 food hampers worth R150 000 to destitute SANMVA members, an umbrella body of all military veterans in South Africa. The hampers will be handed over to the military veterans in Mpumalanga and thereafter rolled out in other provinces.
According the department, members are from the former liberations armies Umkhonto We Sizwe and the Azanian People's Liberation Army who have no means to fend for themselves because they were not fully reintegrated into civilian life or military opportunities.
The Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Thabang Makwetla, will attend the event along with a representative from the provincial veterans and one from the beneficiaries.
In his address, Makwetla is expected to highlight progress in establishing the new department and also unveil new policy initiatives that government, through the department of military veterans, will implement as part of its efforts to address the plight of military veterans.
New policy proposal include benefits such as support in the form of health care, compensation, free access to public transport, economic empowerment, etc.
The department was promulgated by President Jacob Zuma in December last year with the explicit purpose of addressing the varied needs of the veterans' constituency.
