Ahead of this week’s budget speech, the Wits Justice Project at the Wits Centre for Journalism has prepared a simple toolkit that will help journalists and other reporters take a closer look at the budget and expenditure of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

In this kit (links below) you will find:

 

1) A spreadsheet with a summary of expenditure broken down into the five key programmes or cost centres identified by the department (these are: Administration, Court Services, State Legal Services, the National Prosecuting Authority, Auxiliary and associated services; and magistrates’ salaries). This sheet looks at data from 2018/19 to the projected allocations/expenditure for 2024/25, and is taken from the Treasury’s 2022/23 budget document.

 

2) The Wits Justice Project has used this information to create a series of graphs and charts that look at how expenditure has changed over time, on individual sections and as a proportion of the total budget. These graphs help us to think differently about how much money is spent on a particular section or item, and see more clearly where expenditure has increased or decreased over time, or remained static.

 

You can read the full guide to the toolkit, as well as access the spreadsheet and our graphs through the links below.

 

Click here to download the guide.

Click here to download the spreadsheet. 

Click here to download the graphs and charts presentation.