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Cape Town - The SA Police Service (Saps) will receive close to half of government's R171.2bn allocation to the defence, public order and safety function, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said on Wednesday.
Tabling his first main budget in the National Assembly, for 2015/16, Nene said the bulk of the money would be used to tackle "the unacceptably high levels of crime in our country".
About two-thirds of the SA National Defence Force and Saps budgets would go to compensating soldiers, police officers and other employees.
"To cover a funding shortfall created by higher than anticipated remuneration costs, the departments of defence and police have reprioritised R2.4bn and R1.1bn from their goods and services budgets," according to the Budget Review document.
Over the medium term, the defence department would spend R2.8bn of its budget on safeguarding the country's borders. Another R4.5bn would be spent on regional peacekeeping operations.
Spending on courts and prisons would increase to R39.1bn.
Over the medium term, a total amount of R492m would be reprioritised towards improving access to justice, Nene said.
"Legal Aid South Africa will receive R126.8m to increase the number of legal practitioners by 167, helping to clear a backlog in the courts," the budget review stated.
"The National Prosecuting Authority will receive R81m to appoint 41 additional prosecutors."
The office of the chief justice, which would be established as a separate department on April 1, would receive an allocation of R5.2bn over the next three years.
The public protector and the Financial Intelligence Centre would receive additional funds to bolster their numbers.
"Over the medium-term, R60m has been reprioritised to the [office of the] public protector of South Africa to increase its investigative capacity and to retain trainee investigators," the document said.
"An additional R60m is allocated to the Financial Intelligence Centre to employ additional permanent staff with investigative and analytical skills."
The police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigate Directorate, would set aside R93.9m over the next three years to establish a specialised investigative team to focus on "priority investigations".
