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National Director of Public Prosecution Advocate Shamila Batohi briefing media on progress made in the Venda Building Society Mutual Bank investigations.
National Director of Public Prosecutions, Shamila Batohi, has highlighted salary dispensation as one of the challenges causing setbacks in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
Batohi says this has led to the NPA losing skilled members to institutions that can pay better salaries.
Her remarks come as the NPA faces backlash from the public for its unsuccessful prosecutions in high-profile cases. This follows the acquittal of televangelist Timothy Omotoso who was facing charges, including rape, human trafficking, and racketeering.
Batohi has dismissed as unfounded claims that the NPA is in crisis.
“The challenges we face is that the salary dispensation in the NPA is not a good one to actually retain those very highly specialised skills. And so we find that as we’re recruiting, we’re losing staff members to other government departments like the SIU or SARS, that can offer you know, higher salaries.”
“So, in as much as a lot of work is happening, I think we really need to have very careful reflection on what are the challenges to dealing with these kinds of cases in South Africa. And then to really address those systemic challenges, otherwise we are going to continue to struggle in this regard,” adds Batohi.
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