Correctional services cuts consultant costs

The department of correctional services is working to significantly reduce its reliance on consultants, using them “only when necessary” to improve governance and cut irregular expenditure.

- Des Erasmus

According to a presentation delivered to parliament's portfolio committee on correctional services this week, the department’s consultant-related spending dropped to R29.2 million in the 2025-26 financial year from R119.3 million previously.

Its historical over-reliance on consultants was driven by governance weaknesses, a shortage of critical skills and the complexity of managing large-scale projects, chief financial officer Lebogang Marumule told committee members.

In the past, the department faced recurring issues of noncompliance with procurement prescripts, limited internal capacity and repeated findings from the auditor-general regarding irregular contract splitting.

The clearing of irregular expenditure has been “a very, very tedious exercise with which the department of correctional services has been struggling, with transactions going as far [back] as 2008”, Marumule said.

The previous department of correctional services audit committee, he said, had mandated that the management of R6.7 billion in irregular expenditure should be a project undertaken by the department and consultants were sought in this regard.

It had tried to deal with the irregular expenditure itself, “but we were not successful”, he added.