Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi on Tuesday said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was currently in a drive to fill 268 vacant posts that were at various recruitment processes at the end of May 2025.

Responding to questions in the National Council of Provinces, Kubayi said the NPA’s staff complement has expanded by 34% since 2019 and has a substantially reduced vacancy rate.

“In the current format, human capacity, the head count is 5,513 permanent employees, an additional 327 appointed on fixed-term contracts, and 3,562 prosecutors who are permanently employed, and 289 are prosecutors who are appointed on contract.

“In the past financial year alone, the NPA has been able to appoint 728 permanent prosecutors and also 685 contract appointments,” she said.

Kubayi also said the NPA has moved from an annual performance of 50% in the 2020/21 financial year to 73% in 2023/24.

“The upward performance trajectory saw the NPA making a considerable contribution towards the Medium Term Development Plan for 2019-2024 in terms of improving on conviction rates in all court orders and attaining R11 billion in freezing orders against a target of R10.4 billion.”

She stated that the NPA has been allocated R6.1 billion for the 2025/26 financial year, with R5.2 billion to be spent on compensation of employees and over R830 million on goods and services.

“It is projected that the NPA will be able to conclude and utilise this budget effectively. I must indicate, in some of the instances, we are able to pull from the Criminal Asset Recovery Account fund to support some of the work, and the Minister of Finance has been very supportive of the NPA in terms of ensuring financial resources.”

Kubayi said prosecutors are undergoing continuous training and development in various aspects.

“Currently in the financial year, we have scheduled 148 training programmes and 10 have already taken place with 60 employees benefiting from this.”

The minister added that they were consistently reviewing the capacity and the training needs for all areas, especially in dealing with specialised commercial and corruption-related matters.

“We have done the study that provides a picture of levels of capacity where it resides and amongst the prosecutors. Out of this review study, we’ll be able to feel where the gaps are and in the areas where there are complex, organised crime, complex commercial crimes, including corruption, we’re able to close those gaps.”

Kubayi said there were lessons to be learned from the failed prosecution of Timothy Omotoso and Moroadi Cholota, former personal assistant of former Free State premier Ace Magashule.

“More work can be done, but support and providing oversight over some of the cases. A lot of work is being done and over time where there is shortage of capacity, for example, we are able to source even external capacity to come and support the NPA.”

Kubayi also stated that the current workload per prosecutor in lower courts was split between the work of the district court and the regional court.

“The outstanding cases per prosecutor in the district court amount to 80 cases per prosecutor. The outstanding cases per prosecutor in the regional court amount to 53 cases. Apart from the criminal court work, prosecutors in both district and regional courts have dealt on average with 207 decision dockets in the past financial year.”

She said the number of verdict cases finalised in the past financial year per prosecutor in the district court was 105, and 26 cases in the regional court per prosecutor.

“When we look at international case load, the prosecutors in South Africa deal with an average workload that is not outside the norm.”

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za

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