One government department guilty of R1.9 billion in unauthorised overspending

The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has accrued R1.9 billion in unauthorised overspending over the last three years.

This includes R637 million, which was overspent in the 2025/26 financial year alone, in breach of statutory parliamentary allocations.

The DCS is responsible for running South Africa’s prison system, with 36,000 staff members overseeing the country’s 243 correctional facilities.

The overspending has been deemed indicative of a collapse in financial management and executive integrity at the DCS, under the leadership of Minister Pieter Groenewald.

This has resulted in the Department regressing to a disclaimed audit opinion from the Auditor-General this year, the worst audit opinion that can be issued.

Member of Parliament Janho Engelbrecht said this was not simply an administrative oversight, but a direct indication of weak leadership at the DCS.

“Financial documentation submitted by DCS management was allegedly altered, falsified, and tampered with, fundamentally destroying the audit trail,” Engelbrecht said.

“To make matters worse, senior DCS officials actively attempted to pressure and persuade the Auditor-General to withdraw the disclaimer before the report was final.”

Engelbrecht pointed to several other financial concerns at the Department, including irregular expenditure that grew to R144.3 million.

R136 million of this is tied directly to non-compliant food supply contracts, while R170.85 million was flagged in potential price-gouging overspend on a single nutritional products tender.

Meanwhile, fruitless and wasteful expenditure grew to R12.6 million, including R6 million in avoidable late-payment interest and penalties.

Another R6.4 million of this was attributed to default judgments against the state when DCS officials failed to appear in court.

The Department also has a consequence management backlog of R1.38 billion, despite Groenewald saying on more than one occasion that misconduct would be dealt with.

The DCS reportedly failed to investigate 75% of historical irregular expenditure, with Engelbrecht saying there was a deliberate failure to build internal investigative capacity.

“We reject the false defence the Department has raised for years that it suffers under ‘budgetary constraints’,” Engelbrecht said.

“The DCS is not underfunded. Taxpayer money is being systematically bled dry through fiscal indiscipline, procurement looting, and sheer administrative negligence.”

Engelbrecht called for SAPS and SIU criminal investigations into allegations of DCS officials tampering with the Department’s financial records.

He also called for an independent forensic audit into all national and regional food supply contracts, including tenders for agricultural feeds.