To investigate any conduct in state affairs, or in public administration in any sphere of government that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to result in any impropriety or prejudice, to report on that conduct, and to take appropriate remedial action.

The vision of the OPP describes its future intent, and has a tone of growth and success. It will lead the OPP to greater harmony and collaboration with individuals and teams in the organisation. By 2010, OPP has as its vision:

2.1 The headquarters or national office of the office of the Public Protector is located in Pretoria and for the interim, it also serves as a Provincial Office for the Gauteng Province. Negotiations are currently under way with the Johannesburg Development Agency to have a permanent presence at Constitutional Hill. This would then serve as the provincial office for Gauteng.

2.2 There are eight (8) Provincial offices located in the following cities in each of the eight provinces

:

2.3 In addition thereto, the Mafeking provincial office has four( 4) Regional offices in the North West Province located at the following areas:

The following make up the staff establishment for the Office of the Public Protector:

The Public Protector is an institution that strengthens Constitutional democracy in the Republic of South Africa and therefore seeks to:

2.5.2 Ensure that service delivery is to all and sundry in an equitable manner and;

2.5.3 Investigate any conduct in state affairs and in the public administration in any sphere of government that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to result to any impropriety or prejudice. This therefore can only be achieved once people are aware of and have access to the office of the Public Protector.

The following issues address the activities for the financial year 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004

The office received a budget of R43 404 000 for the 2003/2004 financial year. It also received an inflationary adjustment of R115 000, therefore the total allocation amounted to R43 519 000. The office had an accumulated surplus of R9 million which consists of the following:

Total allocation R43 519 000

Interest income R 1 099 000

Less expenses for the year R43 115 000

Surplus R 1 503 000

The total accumulated surplus as at 2003/2004 R10 603 000

Roll over to next year 2004/2005 R 3 803 000

Committed for salary adjustments R 3 200 000

Expenditure on fixed assets R 3 600 000

In conclusion the true savings for the 2003/2004 financial is R 1 503 000

The office functioned with one budget programme, viz, Investigations and Administrative Support. There has been no overspending.

For the previous financial year, 2002/2003, the office received an unqualified audit report, with an emphasis of matter on reliance on Internal Audit.

The office aims at maintaining this standard and obtaining an unqualified audit report for the 2002/2003 financial year.

This matter was reported on during the 2002/2003 presentation to the Committee. The unauthorised expenditure of R640 118 was referred to SCOPA and the written submission by the Accounting Officer was considered by SCOPA. On 25 September 2003 SCOPA recommended that the amount be authorised by parliament. The office awaits an official response from Parliament to this effect.

With much emphasis being placed on the rural outreach programmes, the promotion and expansion thereof contributed towards the steady influx in the number of new cases received for investigation, This in turn, necessitated the need to appoint additional staff to satisfactorily address the increase in workload. Investigator Assistants were appointed at the respective offices to attend to these issues.

The offices in each of the respective provinces are successfully making in roads to reach our people and empower them on the role and function of the Public Protector.

All Provincial offices of the Public Protector embarked on an awareness campaign as well as a campaign to identify areas where future possible offices and or visiting clinics would be established. Some of such identified areas are already functional.

At least one assistant investigation officer has been appointed in each provincial office. These investigators are exclusively pre-occupied with outreach programs in their respective areas.

While the Provincial Co-ordinator is responsible for the overall co-ordination of national and provincial activities of the Office of the Public Protector an additional senior investigator has been appointed at National office to specifically co-ordinate rural outreach programs.

Negotiations, though quite protracted, with the EU for their offer of sponsorship of our outreach program are at an advanced stage. Hopefully a final agreement on the implementation of the financing agreement will be reached soon. See further discussion in paragraph 5.3.3 below.

The outreach program is ongoing and is already yielding fruitful results in for instance increase in complaints in provinces that were experiencing problems in justifying their existence.

A Public Awareness Committee has been establish to oversee the implementation of programmes in each of the respective provinces. A rural outreach programme to be conducted throughout the country was identified by the office of the Public Protector as a priority. The ultimate aim of this project is to make the services of the office of the Public Protector accessible to the poorest of the poor, even in the remotest outposts.

As an introduction to this programme, visiting points were established in all Provinces. In this way, staff from the Provincial offices can receive complaints from the public and handle them from their respective offices. Depending on the needs in certain areas, regular clinics or satellite offices will also be set up where possible.

To spearhead this project, Assistant investigators have been appointed in all Provincial offices.

Awareness campaigns embarked upon during the year under review also assist in reducing a flood of non-jurisdictional complaints that were previously received by the Office of the Public Protector.

The following is an overview of the workload that the office of the Public Protector had received for the period 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004:

Cases brought forward from 31 March 2003 2 142

(North West provincial office):

Cases brought forward from 31 March 2003 826

Cases brought forward from 31 March 2003 438

Cases brought forward from 31 March 200 225

Cases brought forward from 31 March 2003 60

Cases brought forward from 31 March 2003 297

Cases brought forward from 31 March 2003 152

Cases brought forward to1 April 2004 1 100

Cases brought forward to 1 April 2004 297

Cases brought forward to1 April 2004 202

Cases brought forward to1 April 2004 438

The delay in finalising the appointment of the Deputy Public Protector (DPP) has to some degree, adversely impacted on the operational levels of the office. The absence of this key incumbent meant that the Public Protector had to function within a highly pressurised environment. In terms of the revised post establishment blueprint, the DPP would serve as the Chief Executive Officer for the office. I therefore humbly request that this honourable committee assist Parliament by facilitating the necessary processes needed to finalise the appointment.

As already mentioned, the office requested the workstudy component of the Department of Public Service and Administration to review its post establishment blueprint. The blue print has already been tabled and approved by parliament. It is ready to be implemented during this financial year.

The abovementioned budget of R 56,960,000 will be utilised as follows:

Approved budget R 49 160 000

Roll over R 3 800 000

Add: Estimated Interest R 800 000

Proposed Salary Adjustment R 3 200 000

post establishment blueprint R 900 000

The office has adopted a formal strategic plan to enable it to function and deliver qualitative services to the people of South Africa. This matter has been covered in-depth in the main body of the annual report.

The office has engaged the services of SITA to develop and implement a new case management system for the office of the Public Protector.

The office has set up a committee to oversee the introduction and promotion of all public awareness programmes for the office.

The European Union (EU) has proposed an advocacy programme for Chapter 9 institutions - in this case the Human Rights Commission, the Commission on Gender Equality and the Public Protector - to the value of 10 million euro.

This would be a four-year programme which would run as a pilot initiative in the three provinces identified by them - Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. A focus on civil society is an essential factor for the EU and the programme would therefore address the weakness of civil society advocacy in the targeted provinces and the under-capacity of the Chapter 9's and Civil Society Organisations to facilitate the access to vulnerable groups to constitutional rights. By means of financial and other support, the programme would aim to promote communication, awareness and contact between stakeholders which would ultimately lead to improved service delivery.

The programme would address and fund such aspects as capacity building, training, research, human resources, external consultancy, communication and evaluation and could be linked to the outreach programme being conducted by the office of the Public Protector.

Brussels has already approved the financing proposal. Once the Memorandum of Understanding between the three Chapter 9's has been finalised, the Financing Agreement with the EC can be signed and the first phase of the programme can commence, hopefully in this financial year.

We stated in our report last year that "the Office of the Public Protector is relatively unknown to a Section of our population". An undertaking was made to increase accessibility as well as the popularity of this office. In the proceeding financial year the following steps were embarked upon to as a pre-launched of the outreach program. A Provincial Co-Ordinator was appointed on 15 July 2003. See further discussion on this matter in paragraph 3.2.2 and 3.2.3 above.

We reported last year that the Office of the Public Protector did not comply with the provisions of the Employment Equity Act to the extent that we were beginning to receive notices for non-compliance with the Act.

It can now be confirmed that the Office of the Public Protector is now fully compliant with the Employment Equity Act. Policies surrounding the Employment Equity Act have now been fully formulated and are operational.

The office is currently complying with the Act and will be submitting the second report on 01 October 2004.

Office policies are nearing completion and should be completed by the end of July this year.

The office premises of the Public Protector are in the process of being relocated due to lack of sufficient space to accommodate all required sections of the Office including the library. At the new premises, it is hoped; a fully-fledged library will be established. The organogram, already tabled with parliament provides for the appointment of a librarian together with an assistant librarian as the staff in charge.

As intimated in our previous presentation a specialized investigation unit has been established to, amongst others, deal with urgent, complex and high profile complaints. The unit is fully functional.

On 27 May 2003, I met with Minister of Finance, Mr Manual to resolve this long outstanding matter. However, this matter still remains partially unresolved. The Minister of Finance has now referred this matter to the Minister of DPSA as a further consultation.

The office is currently in negotiation with the Johannesburg Development Agency to secure permanent office accommodation on the premises of Constitutional Hill. The office has been informed that such accommodation should become available by end October 2004. Once established, this office would then serve as the Gauteng provincial office.

A number of complaints were lodged with us under the protected disclosures Act.

Our concern is that, for unknown reasons, names of individuals who lodged such complaints became known to their masters. Their masters, even before the completion of our investigations, suspended these individuals.

These suspensions were followed by disciplinary hearings and some of the charges were that they had disclosed certain information to the Public Protector.

We agree that malicious disclosure of false and unfounded information should ideally be disciplined. However, the trend is worrying as people will in future be scared to lodge complaints under the protected disclosures Act and the whole purpose of the act would be defeated.

The remedies provided for in the Act are too costly and the procedures quite long. By the time such remedies are obtained, an individual is already expelled.

In due course we will be making a submission to parliament to have the situation corrected.

Non-jurisdictional matters are often received from member of both parliament and provincial Legislatures. Such matters which fall within Codes of Conduct of these institutions are often reported to us. One would expect that law makers would understand these laws much better than ordinary individuals. In some cases these complaints are merely made as a game of politics.

There is a dire need to relocate the head quarters of the office of the Public Protector. The department of Public Works and Administration was approached to assist in facilitating this matter. However there have been some delays in finding suitable office accommodation within the CBD of Pretoria. The current premises are no longer suitable as there is no further room for expansion.

In general there has been co-operation between our office with the Justice, Finance Treasury and Public Service and Administration Departments on operational levels. There have been functional hiccups but were, in the end, able to resolve such issues amicably.

In conclusion, I wish to thank the Honourable Chairperson and all of the committee members for their unconditional and valuable support in recognising the importance of my office and assisting it in its quest to enhance service delivery to the people of South Africa.