Justice and Correctional Series Minister Ronald Lamola has confirmed that the national sexual register for sex offenders is up to date.
Responding to parliamentary questions from DA MP Anna Maria van Zyl, Lamola said the national register for sex offenders (NRSO) was established to curb sexual offending and re-offending in the country.
In terms of the NRSO, the particulars of all convicted sex offenders are entered into the register, unlike before 2018 when only entries were made of sex offenders convicted of sex crimes involving children and those with mental disabilities.
Lamola said the scope of protection afforded by the NRSO had been extended.
“The register is up to date, as it is built on the integrated case management system, which instantaneously captures cases as and when the court convicts the offender of a sexual offence.
“With this system, the registrar is able to know all pending cases of sexual offences, of which the particulars of the offenders can be potentially entered into the register,” he said.
Lamola also said there was no backlog of entries on the register.
“However, there is a backlog for clearance certificates caused by the malware attack in 2021. Since the 2022/2023 financial year, the department has included an indicator in the annual performance plan to eliminate this backlog, and the plan is to achieve this goal in this financial year.”
He also said the registrar was required to issue a clearance certificate as soon as was reasonably practicable, but within 10 working days after the receipt of application.
“Any application that is still not considered beyond 10 working days after the date of receipt is classified as a backlog application.”
Lamola said the national register for sex offenders used to have inaccurate and incomplete entries until 2018, when the department upgraded the integrated case management system for the register to include smart functionalities that automatically detect wrong entries.
“To address the inaccuracies entered prior to 2018, the department introduced a data verification project and employed data capturers to clean up the data.
“On March 31, 2018, the data verification project was finalised and over 19 668 ring-fenced cases were validated as the NRSO entries.
“The NRSO was subsequently audited by the office of the auditor-general in 2019 and its information was found to be complete, accurate and valid,” he said.
Cape Times
