Staff Reporter.
The Office of the Public Protector needs a further R76 million in budget allocations over the next three years to execute its mandate.
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkwhebane and her team met with the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services to discuss the Public Protector’s annual report for 2020/21.
The office received a clean audit opinion from the Auditor-General for the second year running.
Public Protector Chief Financial Officer Yalekile Lusibane told the committee: “Some operational matters will suffocate because we are underfunded.”
For the 2020/21 financial year, R16.1 million was cut from the office’s budget – and for the 2021/22 financial year, it was reduced by R28.7 million.
Originally, R360.613 million was budgeted for 2021/2022. It will only get R331.884 million.
The year after that, it will receive R340.918 million, down R37 million from the earlier budget – and the year after that, R345.190 million, down R19 million from the original budget.
Due to the R16.1 million budget cut, the office faced a shortfall, but it received a R30.5 million bailout from the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development in March 2021.
The financial year ended on 31 March. Subsequently, the office reported a surplus of R16.2 million as it didn’t have time to spend all the money from the department.
Lusibane said they had requested National Treasury to approve the surplus to use it for “critical projects”.
The budget cuts since the 2017-2018 financial year meant that the office had 33 positions that were unfunded.
The office made a presentation to National Treasury to request a correction of its baseline allocation.
Lusibane told the committee that over the years the office had been in operation, its mandate had been expanded to include executive ethics management, anti-corruption and whistleblower management through legislation envisaged in the Constitution.
With inputs from News24.