Justice Department says it has spent over R48m on TRC individual reparations

Acting Director General of the Justice Department and Constitutional Development, Advocate Kalayvani Pillay, told the TRC Cases Inquiry that the department has spent more than R48 million on individual reparations for victims identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Who gave evidence and where

Pillay gave her account while appearing before the TRC Cases Inquiry, which is chaired by Justice Sisi Khampepe. Her evidence was heard on Thursday.

How the funds have been used

Pillay said the Justice Department has channelled payments from the President’s Fund towards individual reparations. She said the department has spent about R30 million on education assistance for basic and higher education and that it has also made payments towards housing reparations.

Documents and cooperation with the Inquiry

Asked to assist the commission, Pillay said she had assigned officials to make TRC-related information available and that the documents which had been located were provided to the Commission.

She described part of the process: some documents needed to be declassified, copies were delivered to the State Attorney, and the State Attorney in turn had to deliver them to the Commission. She said this was the process followed, and that a subpoena had been served on her office for the release of specific documents.

“When the documents are allocated, we had to declassify certain documents. There are documents which were copied, and we delivered them to the State Attorney, who had to deliver them to the Commission. I am not sure if these were emailed, but that is the process we followed.”

Ongoing testimony at the Inquiry

The Commission continued to hear evidence from Jacob Skosana, the former Acting Director General of the Justice Department, who began his testimony to assist the Inquiry with information relating to TRC cases.

Key facts:

• The Justice Department has spent more than R48 million on individual reparations for TRC-identified victims.
• About R30 million was spent on education assistance.
• Payments have also been made towards housing reparations.
• Pillay confirmed documents were declassified and passed via the State Attorney to the Commission, after a subpoena was served on her office.