The National Treasury has made an additional allocation amounting to R950 million to cover the unforeseen costs incurred by the police and the army during the July protests in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
A further R1 billion was allocated to the police in their fight against crime. Tabling his maiden medium term budget policy statement, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said the criminal activity witnessed during the unrest reminded the nation that crime continued to be a blight in the country.
“It undermines confidence in our recovery and hinders our long term economic development,” Godongwana said. According to the budget documents, R250m was to provide costs associated with the increased deployment of police personnel during the unrest.
It also said R700m was allocated for the deployment of the army to support the police in executing Operation Prosper in response to the unrest and to deal with terrorism in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique through Operation Vikela.
The National Treasury’s budget document said the peace and security cluster would spend an average of R218.1 billion per year over the 2022 medium term expenditure framework period.
More than 60 percent of the funding would be spent on compensation of employees. A further R566.8m was rolled over for a medical scheme for cases in which police officers were injured while on duty.
“R112m is rolled over for upgrading the department’s wide area network ICT infrastructure and storage and disaster recovery capabilities, converting forensic vehicles and implementing automated DNA processing system,” reads the MTBPS document.
The National Treasury has said over the next few years, the Department of Defence will reprioritise funds to set up a rapid response unit. It will also implement reform to manage long standing pressure on compensation that is resulting in irregular spending
Source: IOL
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