Masutha assures on Master’s backlog

THE office of the Master of the High Court in Pretoria has experienced backlogs following problems of payment of a service provider that kept its files.

This was revealed by Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha in a written reply to a parliamentary question from the Freedom Front Plus’s Wouter Wessels, who enquired about backlogs in the court’s Pretoria office.

Wessels also wanted to know what steps the department was taking to address the backlog, and about the average backlog in the offices of the other six provincial divisions.

Masutha said the Pretoria office was making use of off-site storage for files that were not active.

“During May 2017 the storage contract expired and was awarded to a new service provider.

“The transfer of the Pretoria Master’s files from the one service provider to another proved challenging as there were disputes with regard to what should still be paid to the previous service provider, a matter which ended up in court.

“There were also delays experienced with the transfer of the physical files as the previous service provider struggled to locate all the Pretoria files.”

Once the files were transferred to the new service provider, challenges were experienced with regard to the way in which they were stored, causing delays in retrieval of the files, he said.

Masutha added that during the period, the Master experienced delays in receiving files from off-site storage and thus could not deal with the amendments to be done on these files, causing a backlog.

He explained that the backlogs affected trust amendments, trustee amendments and correspondence in older files.

“All new registrations and appointments are being dealt with as they are logged, as these are not dependent on the receipt of files from off-site storage.”

Masutha said the Pretoria Master’s Office had started keeping all trust files from 2016 in office vaults instead of sending them back to off-site storage facilities.

“Monthly meetings are being held between the Pretoria Master’s Office and the current service provider to ensure that all challenges are sorted out expediently.”

Masutha added that all requested files had now been allocated to 24 officials in the Pretoria Master’s Office to work overtime and weekends from November 15 until Saturday to bring the backlog up to date.

“The backlog situation will be assessed again… but all indications are that the backlog will be cleared by March 1, 2019.

“There are no backlogs in the other 15 Master’s Offices that need special intervention,” Masutha added.