[1] The Order for Meritorious Service was instituted by the Republic of South Africa in 1986, by Warrant published in Government Gazette no.

Recipients included cabinet ministers, judges, captains of commerce and industry, church leaders, academics, sports stars and prominent figures in the arts and sciences.

[1] The positions of the two classes of the Order for Meritorious Service in the official order of precedence were revised three times after 1986 to accommodate the inclusion or institution of new decorations and medals, first with the integration process of 1994, again when decorations and medals were belatedly instituted in April 1996 for the two former non-statutory para-military forces, the Azanian People's Liberation Army and Umkhonto we Sizwe, and again with the institution of new sets of awards in 2002 and 2003.

[1] The badge of the Order is a white-enamelled gold or silver gable cross that displays the national arms on a shield in the centre of a smaller gold or silver cross paty.

The suspender is in the form of the crest of the pre-1994 South African Coat of Arms, a lion holding four staves to represent the four provinces of the Union of South Africa, above an outline of an inverted gable.