Nene: Fighting crime and defence a priority

Cape Town - South Africa still has unacceptably high levels of crime. Government’s spending on public safety and order and on defence will therefore continue to increase, from R163bn this year to R193bn by 2017/18, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said in his National Budget speech on Wednesday.

Police services receive about 48% of the total allocation. Effective and efficient courts, under Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Tshililo Masutha’s oversight and Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s leadership, are central to constitutional democracy and the functioning of the criminal justice system. Over the medium term, a total amount of R492m has been reprioritised towards improving access to justice, Nene said.

This will increase capacity for court support personnel, public defenders and prosecutors.

The office of the chief justice has been established as a new department to strengthen the independence of the judiciary. It becomes fully operational on April 1 2015, with a budget over the medium-term expenditure framework of R5.2bn.

The fight against corruption remains a central priority, according to Nene. Additional allocations have been made to the public protector and the financial intelligence centre for increasing their human resource capacity.

“South Africa’s defence force under Minister Mapisa-Nqakula will continue to be deployed for safeguarding our borders and in peacekeeping operations in several conflict areas. Budget provision for border safeguarding and regional security amounts to R2.8bn and R4.5bn, respectively, over the next three years.