Quarterly crime statistics in spotlight
Police minister Bheki Cele will on Tuesday release quarterly crime statistics, reflecting on “reported” and “detected” incidents by the SA Police Service (SAPS) in the three months to end-March.
The crime statistics provide an insight into the state of the nation, given that SA again saw an increase in violent crime in 2022. Murder, sexual assault, rape, common robbery and assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily have all grown significantly in recent years.
Presenting crime statistics for the period October to December 2022 before parliament’s police committee in 2022, Cele said the police had reported 7,555 murders in the three month, which was 669 more than in the preceding quarter. This equated to 82 murders a day, which is up from 74 a day during the same period in 2021.
In another indicator of the government’s performance, auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke will present the 2021/22 local government audit outcomes in parliament.
In 2022, Maluleke decried the poor state of local government, saying the lack of improvement in municipal audit outcomes is an indictment of the sector’s accountability ecosystem, which has failed to act against service delivery challenges.
In the last report, the number of clean municipal audits improved slightly from 32 to 41 during the 2020/21 financial year, while 64% of municipalities incurred unauthorised expenditure totalling R20.45bn. She said that of the R20.45bn, a total of R13.25bn was for noncash items, which means that municipalities spent money that councils had not provided for in their approved budgets or that the spending did not meet the conditions of a particular grant.
Of the 257 municipalities in the country, 193 were responsible for fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounting to R1.96bn during the period under review.
Ahead of the Brics summit in SA later this year, international relations & co-operation minister Naledi Pandor will host a meeting in Cape Town this week of foreign ministers of the other members of Brics: China, Russia, India and Brazil. The midterm meeting provides an opportunity for Brics ministers to reflect on regional and global developments.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend the inauguration of president-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Nigeria. Ramaphosa will join a number of his continental counterparts who will also be in attendance. Nigeria is SA’s biggest trading partner in West Africa. A broad range of SA firms are invested in Nigeria, while Nigerian companies are also developing a footprint in SA.
In parliament this week, budget debates will be held on justice, social development, parliament and the presidency.
On Tuesday, the National Treasury will brief the finance committee on the Jobs Fund. In addition, there will be an update before the portfolio committee on communications on the state of readiness for next year’s national and provincial elections.
On Wednesday, the Treasury will brief members of the finance committee on the legal and regulatory framework for procurement of new generation energy capacity by municipalities and municipal entities.