Legal practitioners say they are in the dark about what the Master’s Office turn-around plan entails and that there is no communication forthcoming about a month after the Justice and Correctional Services Ministry and the Master’s Office made a presentation to Parliament about the plan.
“I am not aware of the progress made,” said Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) chairperson for deceased estates committee chairperson, Hussan Goga, when contacted for comment.
Goga referred the “Cape Times” to LSSA’s professional affairs manager Lizette Burger, who put the paper in touch with a Pretoria attorney, Francois Bouwer. He serves on the LSSA estate and trust planning committee.
Bouwer said that since the rescue plan was announced, there had been no proper communication.
“We have not seen a big difference, to be honest.
“ It’s a little soon to see the impact of the rescue plan,” he said.
“Our biggest challenge is that we have not received proper indication or details of what this rescue plan entails. We don’t know practically what they are to implement. We have asked questions and we have not received straight answers. They could not indicate whether they will increase staff.”
The Master’s Office has faced criticism for delays in the provision of its services, slow systems, loss of clients’ documents, poor infrastructure, a backlog of services and long queues.
Stakeholders, including the LSSA, have accused the Master’s Office of not being responsive, not answering telephones, delaying responding to queries and lacking accountability and leadership, among other things.
However, the ministry and Master’s Office had told MPs that they had worked on a plan to improve the situation at Master’s Offices throughout the country.
“Key issues relate to the ICT space, infrastructure challenges and load shedding. Part of what we try to prioritise is a ministerial task team to look at specific areas in three to six months to address lots of those challenges to ensure there is improved service delivery,” director-general Doctor Mashabane said.
Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said the department was willing to enter into a memorandum of understanding on areas of co-operation and work that could enhance and help the administration of estates and work of the Master’s Office.
The turn-around plan contains five key pillars that include fast-tracking, modernisation, acquisition of third party databases, focused education on their intervention and improving offices.
“We have identified a need to roll out a toll-free centre solution equipped with functionalities such as emails, WhatsApp, SMS and reference number issuance to ensure when queries are raised we are responsive in whatever platform and generate a reference number for follow-up,” deputy director general Thabiso Thiti said at the time.
Although no new employees would be hired, the plan envisaged secondment of personnel from other branches, the roll out of the deceased estate online facility in all offices and a network upgrade.
Bouwer, who is at the Master’s offices in Pretoria and Johannesburg almost daily, told the “Cape Times” that they had a meeting with Deputy Minister John Jeffery last month, and a follow-up meeting with acting Chief Master Penelope Roberts to discuss issues related to files kept off-site, among other things.
“Unfortunately, they could not give any answer how far the project is, how many files are scanned and what files there are,” he said.
“We don’t have access to the old files. It’s a nightmare,” Bouwer said.
He told of how they had battled to get all files to comply with beneficiary registrations.
Regarding the online deceased register, Bouwer said the practitioners had asked to be trained so that they could train their members on what some refer to as a frustrating system.
“We have not received any communication when we can receive training. It is not running smoothly as advertised.”
Bouwer said they had learnt that the Master’s Office would relocate in January.
“It is going to be another frustration on top of another frustration. Service delivery will suffer again,” he said.
“We asked for a plan of action whether they will close altogether or just some sections, but they could not give us an answer. It is a frustrating and worrying moment for us at this stage.”
Bouwer said there was apparently another meeting scheduled with Jeffery before the end of the year.
“We have not received an invite or anything. We are still stuck at square one.”
He said that as stakeholders from LSSA and attorney associations representing different bodies, they would prefer the Master’s Office to communicate more with them.
“That can assist members a lot, just to be on the same page. We would like to see some actual feedback and plan of action in their work,” Bouwer said.
Neither the Master’s Office nor Lamola’s spokesperson, Chrispin Phiri, could be reached for comment.
Cape Times