Deputy President David Mabuza said on Tuesday that government has taken a decision to amend military veterans legislation and he wants military veterans, themselves, to propose amendments.

He made the announcement in his capacity as chairperson of the Presidential Task Team on Military Veterans during a visit to Potchefstroom in the North West for strategic consultations with the North West provincial government and military veterans associations.

Mabuza was joined by the Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Thabang Makwetla and senior government officials.

The meeting aimed to provide the necessary platform for the Presidential Task Team on Military Veterans to assess progress achieved by the national and the provincial governments to address challenges faced by military veterans.

Government has created a work stream to look into the Bill that created the Department of Military Veterans (DMV).

“My request is that as we leave here, as the process cannot take forever, that the proposed Act that should be amended should be distributed to members to make comments before this is taken to Parliament and becomes an Act,” Mabuza said.

He was pleased that an outreach programme was taken to provinces given the concerns raised by the military veterans during his visit.

He further called for strengthening of the existing structures of military veterans, saying that the DMV must be closer to the office of the Premier to "connect as a one-stop-shop".

He said while he had been coordinating the work of the task team, with a lot of work done nationally, the team was not connecting with the provinces and the military veterans themselves.

“Firstly, I am happy that the province has organised itself, being coordinated at the level of the Premier’s office - the DMV must now work directly with the office of the Premier unit. The unit itself in the Premier’s office must be stuffed with the relevant requisite skills that will be able to service military veterans in the province,” Mabuza said.

All military veterans issues will be resolved by the office of the Premier with cases being traced to avoid applications getting lost, he explained.