Hon Chairperson, members of the portfolio committee and the House at large, in his popular work The Art of War, the ancient Chinese sage Sun Tzu reminds us that military forces consume a nation's wealth entirely and that war empties the government's storehouses. He graphically captures what happens when your resources get depleted and you hollow out your military, by saying, "Broken armies will get rid of their horses. They will throw down their armour, helmets, and arrows. They will lose their swords and shields. They will leave their wagons without oxen." And, I may add, "They will lose their discipline and morale, too."
Yet it is a syndrome we all don't wish for our country, because our Defence Force is the premier guarantor of our freedom. We would all agree that there isn't much use to be hard at work, broadening the horizons of freedom's possibilities through development, when we cannot guarantee the sovereignty of our country for self-determination.
Where do we start? I believe we cannot solve problems if we think the way we thought, when we created them. The question we need to pose to ourselves is whether we can continue to deliver our defence function with the levels of resources we are dedicating to this mandate today. To be fair, the exercise that should help us answer this question comprehensively is a defence review. However, those who have been following our defence business can argue that the product of the previous such exercise became a still- born baby because we could not fund it.
With all due respect, one can argue that the political callousness towards our country's defence needs has made planning in our defence environment a silly notion. It would appear unavoidable that, to correct this state of affairs, we indeed need an open, participatory public debate so that we can all move together. To leave our defence budget hovering at 1,2% of GDP can only spell further disaster, as managers are compelled to take misaligned short-term decisions to keep the organisation going.
As the Ministry and the department, we are not seeking an easy solution to this problem by pleading for more resources. We have been self-critical too. We have turned the focus on ourselves in order to understand the wrong things we have been doing which aggravated this problem. The departmental task team established by the Minister to ensure efficiency in managing budgets has started work. The team is tasked with curbing wastages, curbing leaks, tackling the syndrome of unspent budgets and end-of-year spikes and duplications, and with reprioritising in order to improve overall due diligence in managing our resources. The task team will also address flawed project finance plans. We need to ensure that budget plans for systems acquisition take into account the maintenance costs of these systems throughout their life cycle. This will improve capability management, especially of new systems, without pressure being exerted on current budgets. We need to make sure that where capital projects are delivered through public-private partnerships, PPPs, we plan their future operational costs, so that they also do not exert financial pressure on the department's budgets. We need to spend enough resources to address asset management.
The task team aims to provide short-term interventions which can yield immediate, albeit modest, savings, while commencing on long-term proposals to reposition the department in a manner that can result in macro savings. This repositioning of the department would be realised in dialogue with those in charge of the defence review. If this work unfolds well, it is anticipated that we can effect the first modest adjustments and savings in the 2011 budget, followed by major adjustments and savings in 2012.
It is worth noting that for all these improvements to be tackled immediately, our department needs to overhaul several of its outdated administration and finance systems, some of which date as far back as 1982. To do this, we hope Treasury will be kind enough to grant us a special reprieve from the moratorium imposed on system upgrading in government. The most refreshing line item in the budget we are here to get Parliament to approve is a modest figure of R20 million for setting up the Department of Military Veterans. On Friday, 30 April, the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Minister Sisulu, opened the offices of the new Department of Military Veterans in Irene, Pretoria.
This development heralds a new era in the history of the military in this country, especially in the lives of those who sacrificed for freedom. It is a development which brings healing to the direct beneficiaries of this programme. It also makes us all, as a country, even more humane, as we make a sacrifice for those South Africans who were not found wanting in sacrificing for us yesterday. They occupied the forward trenches in the unfortunate conflict which consumed so many of us.
We now have a firm policy in government of support for military veterans. This will go a long way in restoring pride and a sense of self-worth in those who served our country and those who continue to serve our country in the military with honour. This policy will go a long way in turning a military career into an attractive option and a career of choice among young people in our country today.
The report containing policy recommendations on military veterans is being taken through Cabinet. It will be presented to Parliament shortly through the portfolio committee. Later in the year, on a date still to be identified, the President will officially launch the services of the new department to beneficiaries and the public at large. The work done by the ministerial task team on military veterans is indeed invaluable. The team evaluated several experiences on how governments provide support to military veterans.
Let us remind the House that the worst-off military veterans are those who served in the liberation armies, because they were without any form of remuneration. They were not gainfully employed to contribute to their pension days and the welfare of their families. It is important to indicate that it is this group, in particular, which has challenges of verifying their particulars. We appreciate that this must be diligently executed to ensure that there are no legitimate cases which are left out to the discredit of the department, while, at the same time, we firmly guard against abuse of this programme.
In its totality, the veterans' population consists of yesterday's problem, which has grown acute because of our neglect. We are also dealing with veterans who are going into retirement today after serving our country with honour since the SANDF was established under the new democratic dispensation in 1994. Lastly, the veterans contemplated, in policy, also include the new crop of SANDF members who are today, among other things, performing duties as peacekeepers outside our borders.
From the above, it is pretty evident that with all the best practice we were exposed to in other countries, we still needed to come back home and craft a solution that addresses our peculiar concrete conditions. With everything taken into account, the new policy objectives are aimed at recognising and honouring all military veterans in life and memorialising them in death for their sacrifice on behalf of the nation; ensuring a smooth and seamless transition of military veterans from active service to civilian life; restoring individuals' lost capabilities to the greatest extent possible; improving the quality of life of veterans and that of their dependents; and, also, ensuring that military veterans are harnessed for reconciliation and nation-building.
It became evident quite early in our assignment that to achieve the above goals, we would be obliged to repeal the current legislation, in particular the Military Veterans Affairs Act, Act 17 of 1999, and to amend other pieces of legislation which are administered by other departments from which military veterans receive other forms of support from government. These include the Housing Act of 1997, the National Health Act of 2003, and the Social Assistance Act of 2004, to cite but a few.
An important overriding consideration of the proposed policy is to ensure that the solution to the problem of military veterans is located and informed by mainstream government policies, in order for it to be sustainable. As a result, the proposed benefits are aligned to government socioeconomic and political policy strategies - for example, that they are in sync with government's social-sector antipoverty strategies and economic development strategies, including skills development, to cite but a few examples. The other key policy alignment task which must still be honed is to bring the recommendations in line with the human resources policy of the Department of Defence and Military Veterans, so that it seamlessly factors in the needs of its members at different stages of their lives, without leaving them vulnerable at any point of their life cycle.
The recommendations before Cabinet are wide-ranging and, hopefully, will be well received by all. Every proposed benefit was thoroughly debated, taking into account not just best practices elsewhere but also being guided by the domestic concrete material circumstances pertaining to suitability, alignment issues and affordability. These issues range from tax matters to job placement versus pension debate.
With the R20 million in the current budget, we hope to get the department immediately on the road in order to start work on consolidating South Africa's database of military veterans and their dependants, to establish work streams, and to detail the policy proposals and operational delivery models.
It is envisaged that, whereas this will essentially be a national department, it will have provincial offices which interface with provinces in such a way that provinces can also augment these budgets where they are able to. To improve accessibility, it is anticipated that regional offices in different provinces will be established as resources become available.
We are looking at the road ahead with anticipation and optimism. We are under no illusion that this is going to be a daunting task, but we accept the challenge without hesitation. We aim to be exemplary in promoting the philosophy of Batho Pele as the most caring department in government. We intend promoting the popular slogan "Nothing for us without us" as we deliver to our stakeholders. However, even as we do so, we will endeavour to build a professional organisation which employs cutting-edge solutions to address these challenges.
In conclusion, in their book about getting big things done in government, titled If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, William Eggers and John O'Leary, in extolling the outstanding virtues of two civil servants who are discussed in the book as the type that we need in order to put a man on the moon, say the following about them:
They took the responsibility of making government work seriously. They were students of process, of data, of the mechanics of governing, because they understood that making government work is a serious endeavour that deserves serious attention.
And they concluded by saying the following:
If our government is to claim a reputation for competency, we will need a political culture that values and honours the capable management of public undertakings, a political culture that values the public servants who tell the unpleasant truths to their political masters. We don't have enough of them today.
I thank you. [Applause.]