President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised that corruption during the "nine wasted years" before he took office will be addressed. With the release of the Zondo commission report this year, his government has to make good on this pledge.
Will R426m be enough to start? The budget has allocated about R7.4bn to hire more people in the security cluster, mainly, says the Budget Review, to "intensify the fight against crime and corruption".
Over the medium term, R426m is allocated to the Investigative Directorate (ID) in the National Prosecuting Authority and to the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) to provide capacity for the investigation and prosecution of cases emanating from the findings of the state capture commission.
This allocation will allow the permanent appointment of 68 staff in the FIC and an estimated 90 in the ID. That’s about 10 more people than the ID told MPs at the end of last year that it was hoping for.
A further R34.3m is destined over the medium term for Legal Aid SA in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and the Northern Cape, says the review.
The budget of the department of justice & constitutional development has been increased by R1.1bn to just over R20bn, while the office of the chief justice receives an additional R39.9m.
According to the justice budget vote, the number of state capture, fraud, corruption and related matters enrolled in court is expected to triple from nine in 2022/2023 to 27 in 2024/2025.
The police, too, will be getting extra money, through an additional R8.7bn allocated over the medium term. Of this, R2.9bn is to cover costs arising from the 2021 public-service wage agreement.
The remaining allocation is for the appointment of 12,000 entry-level constables "to rejuvenate and improve policing capacity", according to the police budget vote. Of these, 10,000 will replace staff who left the service through natural attrition, which means the total headcount will go up to 178,708.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana told a media conference that the National Treasury is in talks with officials in the criminal justice system "to capacitate corruption-fighting institutions, because we don’t want them to be found wanting".
The budget increases tie in with Ramaphosa’s drive to increase investment in SA. Corruption "continues to undermine our credibility as a nation", Godongwana said. "For as long as it undermines that credibility, it also undermines investment. I think we are turning the corner. We have hope."
He referred to the July 2021 anarchy and looting in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, which cost the economy about R50bn, and, alongside Covid, contributed to the destruction of 2.1-million jobs.
The SA Special Risks Insurance Association is allocated an extra R7.1bn to help it manage insurance costs associated with the violence. Claims totalled R32bn.
Godongwana says the government must ensure that the police are effective and that is why "we need to place resources at their disposal". Any failings must not be blamed on lack of resources.
The Treasury will also tighten its own processes to clamp down on corruption. It wants to improve the regulation of cash transactions and public sector procurement, as recommended by the state capture report.
According to the Budget Review, a number of government agencies are working with the SA Revenue Service "to prevent illegal financial transactions and flows, including regulating transactions in sectors prone to illegal activities, such as the scrap steel market".
The Treasury is also leading a process to address weaknesses in the country’s attempts to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Much of the emphasis will be on institutional weaknesses that developed between 2009 and 2018, in the period of state capture.
The Budget Review says SA must make "significant progress" in addressing these weaknesses by October 2022 or risk sanction by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an organisation set up by the G7 in 1989 to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The review says failure to comply with FATF requirements could result in the organisation placing SA on its "grey list" and intensifying its scrutiny of the country.
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