Scales of justice fall victim to budget cuts

State prosecutors are battling to get through heavy caseloads

THE National Prosecuting Authority ( NPA) is slowly being crippled by its failure to fill hundreds of vacant posts, as budget cuts continue to deplete the institution’s overall performance.

This was according to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), which released a report yesterday analysing the NPA’s 2016/2017 annual budget.

The ISS has painted a grim picture of the NPA, which also faces indictments against its leadership, which includes embattled NPA head Shaun Abrahams.

He is challenging a court ruling suggesting his appointment was invalid and his removal from office is fair and equitable in the circumstances.

The NPA’s budget report has disclosed that it lost 157 officials over the 2016/2017 period, with the ISS reporting that a further 55 staff left in the first three months of this financial year.

As it stands, 239 critical posts remain vacant.

“And while the NPA’s resources have been declining, population growth, urbanisation, increasing inequality and social exclusion have led to higher crime levels in many cities.

“As a result, criminal courts in South Africa’s main urban municipalities are overstretched, with prosecutors battling to get through their untenably heavy caseloads,” said ISS researcher Lauren Tracey-Temba in her analysis.

The ISS determined that criminal courts have sat, on average, for just over three hours each day, leading to lengthy delays in numerous cases that were ready for trial.

“This has serious implications for both victims and alleged perpetrators.

“Victims lose faith in the criminal justice system when they have to wait an inordinate amount of time to see justice served.

“For those facing charges without bail, livelihoods and relationships can be lost,” wrote Tracey-Temba.

The financial constraints have also resulted in the suspension of the aspirant prosecutor programme since 2015, which normally would have ushered in new legal graduates into the NPA.

While Abrahams has prom- ised a new National Public Prosecutor Academy is set to launch in April this year, the ISS has questioned where the funding for such a programme will come from, considering the NPA is not likely to receive a budget increase.

According to Temba, to fill the 239 vacant posts, the NPA will require an additional R135 million this year, on top of the current R71m already set to pay existing staff salaries.

“If South Africa is serious about tackling corruption, the budgets of the NPA and specialist anti-corruption agencies will need to be boosted.

“Of course, appointing the right leaders to these bodies and recovering the billions lost through state capture are just as important,” she said.

Meanwhile, NPA spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku said that the justice portfolio committee in Parliament had already made an undertaking to fill the vacant posts.

Abrahams, in his own foreword to the report, acknowledged the staffing crisis, though did not provide any direct solutions.

“Budgetary constraints also remained a challenge, resulting in vacant posts not being filled, placing severe strain on the institution’s staff establishment.

“The aspirant prosecutors programme, which is critical to sustaining the institution’s professional staff, was also affected with no intake of new prosecutors materialising,” he wrote.

‘Victims lose faith

justice served’