TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 2

Chapter 8

Subsection 7

Mistrust of the process

54. For a number of reasons, some victims felt that the Commission’s mandate was a pretence that would inevitably fail to deliver anything constructive. As a result some identified victims, on receiving application forms, would send the field-worker away, presumably waiting to see if delivery seemed likely before inviting the fieldworker to return. This further delayed the process .

55. Another difficulty was that many individuals associated the Commission with the ruling political party. This issue was often raised directly with staff, whom were regularly accused of delaying or pushing forward the applications of certain individuals because of some perceived political or personal bias.

Increasing efficiency of application form recovery

56. A number of factors enabled the RRC to improve its processing times. Regional c o - o rdinators monitored the efficiency of DRSTs, and the analysis of performance indicators enabled the RRC to identify those who regularly took longer than the two-week turn - a round period to deliver completed application forms. The contracts of these DRSTs were not extended. In this way, the national DRST team was right-sized, leading to a better quality of assistance and reducing the number of forms that had to be referred back for further information. The added incentive of a higher remuneration rate when assessing applicants helped consolidate improved performance levels.

Negotiating assistance to those who visited regional offices

5 7 . Many victims approached regional offices direct l y. Staff had to exercise a great deal of creativity in limiting expectations of direct assistance from the Commission while, at the same time, providing adequate support.

58. It should be noted that the idea that the Commission would assist and support victims was founded in the spontaneous commitments made by Commissioners serving on panels during the human rights violations hearings. Although such commitments were understandable in the traumatic environment of the time, these declarations were made before a reparation policy was in place, and left the RRC with a legacy of perceived undertakings that could not possibly be met and which, in turn, led to a great deal of frustration from victims.

CAPTURING REPARATION APPLICATION FORM INFORMATION

59. When the interim reparations regulations were promulgated, it became clear to the RRC that the information submitted by applicants should be captured onto its database. This was discussed with the President’s Fund, as the RRC had neither the staffing resources nor the mandate to proceed with this. Although the President’s Fund undertook to carry out this responsibility, it later emerged that this information had never been captured .

60. In November 2000, the Department of Justice approached the Commission with a request that applications be captured. Cabinet had concluded that the information on the application forms should be available in a more user-friendly format. The Department allocated R350 000 for this purpose, of which the RRC used R150 000 to contract a data-capturing company. The capture of all forms currently on hand was completed by February 2001.

61. The value of this project was that any number of variables related to an individual victim or applicant could now be isolated. For example, it is now possible for the Department of Housing to request all the names, identification numbers, addresses and verbatim comments related to a housing recommendation made by the RRC. This applies equally to other departments and reparations areas : education, medical, mental health, symbolic, welfare and employment.

INTERIM REPARATION STATISTICS

62. In the three and a half years since the adoption of the regulations for interim reparations, the RRC completed the following:

a As at 30 November 2001, 22 274 victim finding notifications with reparation application forms had been sent out via regional offices and field workers to survivors and/or their relatives.

b Of these, 20 389 applications were returned (representing a 92 per cent return rate.

c The RRC was able to access, process and make recommendations on 17 016 of these returned applications. These were then forwarded to the President’s Fund in the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

d Interim grants to the value of R50 million were awarded by the President’s Fund to assist individuals to access the recommended services.

e The unreturned applications (1821) were re-sent to identified recipients, using alternative addresses if provided. Where possible, the voters’ role was used (under the auspices of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)) to find new addresses. If and when these are returned, they will be processed by the President’s Fund.

f The RRC has been unable to trace 1770 identified victims, for whom no identifiable addresses or identity numbers were provided. Their names are on record and will be given to the Presidents’ Fund. Unidentified victims mentioned in amnesty hearings make up 20 per cent of the untraceable potential recipients. Their names are unknown to the Commission.

g The RRC believes that the four years of collecting detailed profiles of the consequences of gross human rights violations for identified victims will assist in the costing and development of an acceptable final reparation policy.