The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services has indicated that it is \u201ccautiously happy\u201d about progress reported on by the Office of the Public Protector for meeting – and in some cases exceeding its targets for the 2019\/20 financial year.<\/p>\n
The committee heard on Thursday that the office of the Public Protector investigated 1 602 COVID-19 related complaints received since the beginning of lockdown, with the bulk of the matters relating to the R350 special social relief of distress grants.<\/p>\n
The rest of the matters were related to personal protective equipment (PPEs) procurement irregularities which have financial implications of an estimated R4 billion for the public purse.<\/p>\n
The committee also heard that the office has also embarked on its own investigation into the state of the country\u2019s healthcare system and basic education. The investigation was prompted by a public outcry and media reports as a result of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
The organisation visited hospitals and schools in various provinces to establish, among others, how they are coping with the devastation brought about by COVID-19 and general state of the facilities in respect of whether they are able to render services effectively and efficiently to the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is extremely encouraging. It shows the organisation is moving speedily forward towards good health.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we expect a 100% reaching of targets from Chapter 9 institutions and not 79% as in your case. The progress you have however made cannot go unnoticed,\u201d Committee Chairperson Bulelani Magwanishe said.<\/p>\n
Magwanishe said the committee will reserve its final judgement until the Auditor-General verifies the performance reported on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Proposed budget cuts<\/strong><\/p>\n Magwanishe also raised the committee\u2019s concerns regarding the proposed budget cuts facing the office of the Public Protector\u2019s office.<\/p>\n The committee heard that budget cuts expected by the organisation amount to R209.4 million between 2020\/21 and 2023\/24.<\/p>\n The budget cut for 2020\/21 have been confirmed, while budget cuts from 2021\/22 onwards are still to be confirmed by the National Treasury.<\/p>\n It further emerged that the office needs more than R52 million over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) to fill positions which became vacant since the 2017-18 financial year.<\/p>\n The Public Protector\u2019s office original cost of employment (CoE) budget amounted to R266 million, R280.6 million and R294.8 million in 2020\/21, 2021\/22 and 2022\/23 respectively.<\/p>\n The National Treasury proposed budget reductions on CoE that amount to R160.6 million between 2020\/21 and 2022\/23.<\/p>\n No provision for cost of living adjustments, except for medical aid increases, housing allowances and notch progressions.<\/p>\n The committee heard that if budget reductions are implemented, the office will significantly overspend on CoE.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have taken a principled decision in this committee that we do not support budget cuts, especially for Chapter 9 institutions. It is worrying that you have to close offices, which means these cuts are crippling your office,\u201d Magwanishe said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services has indicated that it is \u201ccautiously happy\u201d about progress reported on by the Office of the Public Protector for meeting – and in some cases exceeding its targets for the 2019\/20 financial year. The committee heard on Thursday that the office of the Public Protector investigated 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-168239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}