Decoration for Meritorious Services

Decoration for Meritorious Services
Presented by	State President of South Africa
Status	Replaced in 1986
Final award	1986
Total recipients	109
DMS as presented to Casper Hendrik Rautenbach

The Decoration for Meritorious Services was an honour conferred until 1987 by the Government of the Republic of South Africa, usually for political services to the country. The appointments were made by the State President of South Africa.

Postnominal letters

The conferral of this honour entitles the holder to the use of 'DMS' (or Afrikaans : DVD) after their name.

It was superseded by the Order for Meritorious Service in 1986. ^[1]

Since 1 June 1994, this honour is classified as a Commonwealth honour.

Design

A five-armed gold Maltese cross, displaying a golden protea flower on a blue roundel in the centre of a 5-pointed diamond-studded star, all superimposed on a multi-rayed silver and gold plaque (obverse). It is worn on a neck ribbon. ^[2]

Selected recipients

Name	Year	No
P. W. Botha
Pik Botha
Bettie Cilliers-Barnard	1983	No. 86
F. W. de Klerk
Johannes de Klerk
Nico Diederichs
Jim Fouché
Owen Horwood
Gerhardus Petrus Jooste	1985
Piet Koornhof
Douglas Mitchell	1974	No. 8
Hilgard Muller	1976	No. 15
Ian Player
Frans Lourens Herman Rumpff
Casper Hendrik Rautenbach	1980	No.46
Charles Robberts Swart	1972
Marais Viljoen

References

1. Dr S. Monick. "PROFILE OF A RESEARCH PROJECT: THE MEDAL PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MILITARY HISTORY". Scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
2. Arthur Radburn. "SA: Civil 1967-2002". Samw.hwmw.net46.net. Archived from the original on 15 March 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2012.