Question NW3593 to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services

Reply:

The Master’s Offices deals with not only deceased estates, but also bankruptcy matters, registration of trusts, curatorships as well as the Guardian’s Fund.

The Masters have been experiencing challenges with regards to appointment in deceased estates and trusts, as well as payment of Guardian’s Fund claims.

The Master’s Offices are not dysfunctional and though some offices are struggling more than others.

The challenges experienced by the Master includes, but are not limited to, the following:

i) Challenges in obtaining files from off-site storage

The Master’s Offices in Pretoria and Pietermaritzburg have been historically making use of offsite-storage service providers for trust files as they do not have enough space to store their files. The previous contract expired during March 2023 and the Department of Justice entered into a contract with a new Service Provider. The new service provider experienced challenges with the handover from the previous service provider and further to that, the Department decided that the Master Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town should also now make use of the service of the new service provider as digitization forms part of the contract. Old deceased estate files have also been included in this project now, as there are no electronic copies of these files available currently.

However, due to the challenges, the service provider experienced in the handover as well as the state of the files received from the previous service provider, they were unable to, to date scan all files in their possession.

In the light of this offices were unable to deal with correspondence received in most of those files, as they are unable to view / access the files.

This contract is managed by the Deputy Information Officer’s office and not by the Masters.

A meeting was held between all relevant parties to discuss a solution for the delay and fast tracking providing of files to the Masters Offices.

Task teams have been created for each province and will be liaising directly with the service provider to streamline and unblock challenges experienced by the service provider and the Master.

ii) Load shedding

The three sections which are struggling are all dependent on system access and hence load shedding has a paralyzing effect on the functions of these sections. This is however not affecting all offices as there are some which are situated in areas which do not get load shedding and /or have generators.

iii) System downtime

The three sections which are struggling are all dependent on system access and hence any system downtime, bugs and lags have a paralyzing effect on the functions of these sections.

Integration links with external service providers such as Department of Home Affairs also plays a pivotal role in the service delivery in these sections and downtime on their side is also hampering the performance of the Master.

Regular meetings are taking place between the Branch and the ICT Branch of the Department, as well as with DHA and other stakeholders in order to address these challenges.

iv) Vacancies and budget cuts

The Branch budget has been cut and a moratorium has been placed on the filling of any vacant posts and any post which becomes vacant subsequently, however, the Branch has been requested to identify critical post which will be considered for filling, should funds be available.

v) Backlogs

Due to the above issues the Masters have a revolving backlog challenge which will only be contained once the above challenges have been addressed and resolved.

Performance in the Branch is measured against targets set in terms of the Masters’ Annual Performance Plan which has been determined taking into account the challenges experienced in the Masters’ environment.

In the light of this, targets has been set at around 70% of matters done within the given timeframe, which allows for a 30% deviation on this to make provision for matters effected by the challenges listed above. It is envisaged that these targets and performance will increase as and when the above challenges have been addressed.

However, in a bid to improve service delivery, the Master’ Branch together with the ICT Branch, have been developing an Online Deceased Estates Solution to address challenges experienced by our clients when reporting an estate with the Master.

The Online Deceased Estate System seeks to enable South African citizens to submit their deceased estate applications online, giving the user the ability to register an estate from the comfort of their home or office without the need physically to visit any Master’s Office or Service Point of the Master. This system was launched into live production on 10 October 2023 in five Master’s Offices (Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Pretoria and Thohoyandou).

Together with this Online System, a QR-coded appointment letter has been developed. This appointment letter is being sent electronically to the applicant instantly, upon approval of the appointment by the Assistant Master. The client then merely downloads the appointment letter, which can now be verified by scanning the QR-code, and then proceed with the administration of the estate. This alleviates the challenges experienced with collecting of original appointment letters at the Master’s Office, delays caused by postal services not being available, relevant institutions causing delays due to first awaiting verifications of appointments letters from the Master and the need for requesting copies from the Master in this regard. QR-coded appointment letters have already been implemented with great success in three Master’s Offices (Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town) and the rest of the country is to follow suit as soon as possible.

Though the Master’s Offices are hard hit by challenges such as loadshedding, struggling to obtain files from off-site facilities, understaffing, budget cuts and constant network challenges, we are forever striving to implement solutions to better service delivery and ease the frustrations of not only the citizens, but also the employees of the Branch, who are working in a challenging environment.

Furthermore, the Department has set up a high-level Task-Team which will be zooming in on the issues in which the Masters offices are experiencing challenges and addressing them as part of a project action plan.