06 Jul 2023

The Ministry of Defence and Security is seized with improving service delivery for the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) veterans across all their entitlements and grievances.

Answering a question in Parliament, Minister of Defence and Security, Mr Kagiso Mmusi noted that the last parliamentary session passed a bill on veterans affairs that aimed to legislate on services that were due to veterans and establish a dedicated office for dispensing such services to BDF veterans.

The minister explained that his ministry was currently recruiting for a director for the veterans affairs office with the belief that once established the office would consolidate and expedite services to the veterans to include payments and medical cover.

The minister said currently the biggest impediment was accessibility of retired officer’s files, especially those that had long left the force.

He said the defence council met at least four times a year and that in the past financial year it received 38 appeals and grievances from retired soldiers and successfully resolved eight of them, translating to a resolution rate of 21 per cent for appeals received during the year.

Minister Mmusi further stated that the low resolution rate was mainly due to lack of complete documentation as some of the incidences were from more than 20 years ago and documentation was not readily available.

He noted that to date, the BDF have disbursed P19 million to compensate 300 people in the last financial year, and that it had already spent P24 million since April 2023 to compensate 400 people respectively.

“We continue to look for more funds to process these payments immediately they become due,” he said. To expedite their processing, Mr Mmusi said the BDF was setting up a second medical board to be based in Francistown to bring the services closer to the veterans and to expedite their medical assessments.

He said the effort, together with the setting up of the office of veterans’ affairs, should resolve the current delays as there would now be a dedicated account to compensate the retired members and a depository of retirees files for future reference.

On veteran’s association, Mr Mmusi said there were two associations formed by the former members of the BDF named the BDF Retired Members Association (BDFRMA) formed in 2008 and the Military Veterans of Botswana (MVOB) formed in January 2022.

He said BDFRMA held its annual general meeting on May 6, and that it was officiated by the Minister of Defence and Security who interacted with those that wanted to ask questions.

He said the MVOB had paid a number of courtesy calls to the Minister of Defence and Security and the secretary of defence to discuss issues of their concern.

He disclosed that his ministry worked with both associations through their respective executive committees.

Maun East MP, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile had asked the minister to state the progress made in addressing grievances of former members of the BDF or retired soldiers, and he wanted to know how many of them had raised payment complaints with both the BDF and the Botswana Defence Commission and how many of the cases had been amicably resolved.

He further wanted the minister to state the number of cases before the defence council and the resolution rate in the year, as well as reasons why cases involving former BDF members took long to be resolved. ENDs