Question NW2711 to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services

Reply:

1. A total number of convicted sex offenders registered on the National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO) in each province in the periods indicated on the question is as follows:

Table 1: The NRSO Active Cases from 1 January 2017 to 15 November 2021 per province as at 7 December 2021

Name of Province	Years Conviction Registered on the NRSO	Grand Total
	1 Jan to 31 Dec 2017	1 Jan to 31 Dec 2018	1 Jan to 31 Dec 2019	1 Jan to 31 Dec 2020	1 Jan to 15 Nov 2021
Eastern Cape	173	57	220	19	09	478
Free State	133	108	134	28	19	422
Gauteng	101	38	69	38	37	283
Kwazulu- Natal	157	157	186	110	30	640
Limpopo	46	55	68	37	18	224
Mpumalanga	44	83	107	17	01	252
North West	44	87	53	02	11	197
Northern Cape	20	08	22	07	09	66
Western Cape	130	194	161	37	39	561
GRAND TOTAL	848	787	1 020	295	173	3 123

It must be noted that the data sets kept in the Register constantly vary due to the day-to-day activities made in the Register, which include entries and removals of

particulars of sex offenders. As permitted by section 51 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2007, certain registered offenders do apply to the Registrar to have their particulars removed from the Register. After consideration by the Registrar, some of these applications become successful and this results in constant changes in the total number of sex offenders registered on the Register.

1. (i) With regard to the total number of applications received through Form 8 in each province, it is important to first note that the Department commenced with the issuing of clearance certificates in September 2019, and will therefore be unable to provide data sets prior to this date. The delayed issuing of certificates was due to the long process of developing the electronic Register, as prescribed by the Act, and also building the system’s integration internally. It was a process necessary to address challenges relating to data contamination, whilst building a system that preserves data integrity.

Form 8 prescribed by the Regulations on National Register for Sex Offenders relates to applications for certificates by person/licensing authority/relevant authority in respect of particulars of another. The spectrum of these applicants, therefore, includes employers of employees who work directly with children or persons with mental disabilities, as contemplated in section 44 of the Act.

However, some of these employers prefer having their employees applying directly to the Registrar using the prescribed Form 7. In keeping to the question, this response will therefore exclude the Form 7 applications for clearance certificates and zoom into the Form 8 applications. The table below, therefore, gives the total number of Form 8 applications in each region during the period of 1 September 2019 to 15 November 2021 as follows:

Table 2: Total number of Form 8 Applications received during the period of 1 September 2019 to 15 November 2021

FORM 8 APPLICATIONS FOR CLEARANCE CERTIFICATES
Application Type	1 Sept to 31 Dec 2019	1 Jan to 31 Dec 2020	1 Jan to 15 November 2021	Total
Form 8	8 094	5 567	1 044	14 705

The figures above exclude the backlog of 1 972 applications accumulated during the Department’s system downtime which halted entry into the NRSO from 6 September 2021 to 19 November 2021. A Performance Recovery Plan has been developed to speedily eliminate this backlog, and a systems’ enhancement process has also begun.

(ii) The Department is unable to provide statistics on Form 29 applications as the Regulations on the National Register for Sex Offenders prescribe Forms 1 up to

11. Therefore, there are no prescribed forms beyond Form 11. It is the Regulations on the National Child Protection Register that prescribe Form 29, and this Register is maintained by the Department of Social Development.