Africa-Press – South-Africa. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has not received a budget increase for the current financial year and will struggle to fulfil its mandate.
On Wednesday, the commission presented its budget and annual performance plan to the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services.
Acting CFO Lutendo Siphugu informed the committee that National Treasury applied a 0% budget adjustment allocation from the previous year to their budget for 2023-24.
“It has brought a lot of budget constraints,” said Siphugu.
A further challenge is that the Department of Public Works stopped paying the rental for three of the commission’s provincial offices – the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Cape.
“This decision has a cost implication of R1.8 million that we had to factor into the 0% budget adjustment that we had received on the baseline budget from National Treasury,” said Siphugu.
Then, there is also a 7.5% salary increase agreed upon by the bargaining council and the labour union.
Siphugu said it had a cost implication of R3.9 million which was not budgeted for. This now had to come out of the operational budget.
The commission’s total budget is just below R224 million, of which 69% goes to personnel costs, leaving 30% for its operations and 1% for capital expenditure.
Furthermore, their budget is 101.4% of what they are going to receive from National Treasury.
The budget constraints meant that some projects and plans had to fall by the wayside. This included purchasing cars for use by staff in executing their duties, a conference, participating in the government’s internship programme to give young people a foot in the employment market’s door, and not extending the contracts of a staff member monitoring persons with disabilities’ rights, and a PAIA information officer.
The commission’s inability to retain staff was a concern for several committee members.
The commission’s chairperson, Bongani Majola, said they are also concerned about it.
In exit interviews, former staff members indicated they had received better offers elsewhere.
“We couldn’t increase salaries for staff for a long time because of the limited resources we had,” said Majola. “It is something that has worried us.”
He said the commissioners had called on the commission’s secretariat to report monthly on measures to retain staff and fill posts.
“It has had an impact on performance.”
The long time it takes for the commission to complete its reports was another shared concern for the committee.
DA MP Werner Horn said it undermined the commission’s credibility. He mentioned the report on the riots of July 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Commissioner André Gaum said all the commissioners would agree that their reports take too long, and they have implemented measures to speed it up.
He said the report into the July 2021 unrest was faced with many problems, including one of the report writers resigning. However, a provisional report will be sent to stakeholders on 24 May. They will have 30 days to respond, instead of the usual 60 days, and the final report is expected to be released on 24 July.
ANC MP Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen asked about the former acting CEO, who allegedly used discriminatory language.
“We don’t expect such from the SA Human Rights Commission,” she said.
News24 previously reported that the former acting CEO, Chantal Kisoon, allegedly referred to senior managers at the commission as “black babies” during an operational planning meeting on 23 February.
Majola said: “Yes, we had an unfortunate incident, where the former acting CEO uttered words that are unacceptable in the context of not only the commission, but also outside in South Africa.
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“We suspended her, and we instituted an investigation.”
He said the investigation recommended disciplinary action – and, after they started with the disciplinary steps, Kisoon resigned from the commission.
“And that has then been the outcome of that matter.”
Majola said they had a very strict code of conduct, and they would not tolerate such behaviour, as the commission had to set an example.
Referring to the commission’s dwindling budget, ANC MP Nomathemba Maseko-Jele said: “Could it be because Treasury is not motivated by what is coming out of this commission?
“What is lacking with the commission is creativity. Sometimes they need to think beyond the budget and come up with initiatives that is assisting even Treasury to see the need to increase the budget.”
Majola responded: “I agree, we need to really think outside the box, chairperson, and be creative with the way we do things, so that Treasury can see.”
He said they were working on creative solutions.
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