The poor service delivery by the master’s court across the country was laid bare before Parliament with the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) calling on the national legislature to intervene as a matter of urgency.
The LSSA appeared before the justice and parliamentary committee on Friday where it listed a litany of problems it experienced with the master’s office.
LSSA’s Hussani Goga said the master’s office was not functioning as it should for a number of years and the Covid-19 pandemic and load shedding exacerbated matters.
Goga said they had previously attempted to engage with Justice Minister Ronald Lamola, his deputy John Jeffrey, the department and the Office of Chief Justice with a view to find a meaningful solution with little or no success.
He cited lack of leadership, lack of service delivery, correspondence being unanswered, email correspondence not being utilized, phones not being answered and officials not reached.
Goga also said other challenges were files being misplaced, queues not sufficiently managed, vacancies not being filled, allegations of bribery, directives issued without consultation and no transparency on insolvency applications.
“The LSSA recently received a complaint from an attorney that the master’s office has not responded and no one on the master’s escalation list has acknowledged receipt of any of the follow-up emails, including the office of the chief master.
“The attorney claims to have made over 20 calls and the correspondent for having weekly attended the master’s office. End result: no progress,” Goga said.
Goga complained that letters of executorships, liquidation and distribution were received outside the prescribed period of 15 or 21 days.
He suggested that the master’s office should utilise email or change law if required, that it introduces additional capacity, urgently fill vacancies and urgently modernise its systems.
Goga also said the officials should be trained to enhance efficiency and customer focus.
He complained about the master’s office still using the Post Office as the only medium of communication and correspondence arriving to recipients two or three months late.
“This is completely an unacceptable situation,” Goga said.
ANC MP Xola Nqola said the complaints by LSSA mirrored the oversight visits conducted by the committee earlier this year.
“Part of what LSSA is reporting is what we found on the ground as well.
It is quite accurate’,” Nqola said.
Nqola said the committee should have an engagement with the ministry and the department on the issues raised.
ANC MP Wilma Druchen said the master’s office has been a sore point for a long time and that former MP Jacqui Mofokeng used to lament about it.
ANC MP Nomathemba Maseko-Jele registered her disappointment with the state of affairs at the master’s office.
She said the issues raised by LSSA were impacting the work of the attorneys and their livelihoods.
“I really don’t understand, chair, why can't people do what they are hired to do,” Maseko-Jele said.
DA MP Werner Horn said the situation is so dire at the master’s office that they should prioritise it even scheduling meetings in the evenings with the department on the matter.
“I want to plead that this must absolutely happen sooner than later. The practical accusations levelled today must be distilled to a working document before that meeting so that the master's office, the department, the minister and the deputy can come prepared with responses and action plans,” Horn said.
Committee chairperson Bulelani Magwanishe noted with concern that the issues raised by LSSA had much to do with inconvenience of attorneys and were a serious violation of people who were represented by those attorneys.
“In most cases its people who lost their loved ones, who are in a very vulnerable state, the lack of service delivery hurts the most.
“We will urgently call this meeting where the minister and leadership of the department and whoever is acting as the chief master will be part,” Magwanishe said.
He urged the MPs to think about a more drastic action that should be proposed to parliament so that a decision should bind whoever would come before the portfolio committee or the ministry.
“We don’t have time to follow up on most of those issues but the House can have a mechanism to monitor that particular process,” he said, adding that the department would have the right of reply at the next planned meeting with LSSA and also make a presentation on the issues raised.
Cape Times