Johnathan Paoli
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola has re-emphasised the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and its Investigating Directorate’s (ID) lack of funds to deal with corruption and State capture cases.
The minister said that while the budget has increased by 5.39% in the medium term, it remained inadequate to deal with the country’s many cases involving corruption.
This follows on a written question from the DA leader John Steenhuisen on the annual budget of the NPA and specifically the ID in relation to engaging in corruption and criminal conduct by the government.
Lamola said that the NPA budget allocation increased over the medium term, from R4,9 billion to R5,7 billion to capacitate the NPA to deal with State Capture cases and the fight against corruption, with the increase being a result of the R1.3 billion additional funding allocated to the agency during the 2022 medium-term budget.
Lamola said, however, that the increase was against a background of an “inadequate budget” where the ratio of compensation to operational costs was 85:15.
The minister said that despite the fact that the ID’s budget allocation was increased by 11.6% to R308 million over the medium term expenditure framework period, this increase was below inflation which effectively meant that the budget had decreased in real terms.
Previously, in a written reply to a Parliamentary question from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Lamola said there was no money to employ the current crop of soon-to-be graduates in district court posts as has been the tradition.
Lamola said further budget cuts for the next three years will have a devastating impact on the NPA, to the extent that it will struggle to even pay existing staff.
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