Hon Chairperson, as the hon member knows, fighting crime and corruption is one of the key national priorities articulated by President Zuma, in various state of the nation addresses, to this Parliament. The Special Investigating Unit, SIU, is one of the institutions at the forefront in our fight against corruption. The Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act of 1996 was introduced by government to deal with alleged irregularities in the Public Service. This legislation gives the SIU wide powers to investigate irregularities, including corruption, and, very importantly, to recover assets lost through such activities.
In line with government's zero tolerance policy against corruption, the SIU and other institutions actively involved in the fight against corruption have seen massive increases in their budgets and staff over the past couple of years. The SIU's budget has increased on average by 32,84% per year over the past five years, rising from R116,3 million in 2008-09 to a massive R307 million for the current financial year. The staff of the SIU has increased from an initial number of 70 persons to just over 700 persons at present.
Since it was established in 2001, successive Presidents have issued 49 proclamations in Gazettes, authorising the SIU to investigate irregularities in the wide range of departments and institutions. The details of these are listed in Annexure A to this reply, as it would not be possible to read the entire list in the time allocated for responses to parliamentary questions. I have given the list to the hon member who has posed the question. It should be noted that 21, or almost half of the 49 proclamations, were issued by President Zuma in the past three years since 2009. This is clear evidence of government's commitment to fight corruption without fear or favour wherever it might occur.
With regard to the question as to how many of these matters follow from the work of the Auditor-General, we can say that the Auditor-General is one of the important state institutions supporting constitutional democracy, established in Chapter 9 of our Constitution. The mandate of the Auditor- General is to audit and report on the accounts, financial statements and financial management of a wide range of entities required to be audited by the Auditor-General. In this regard the work of the Auditor-General plays an important role in the fight against corruption.
Unfortunately, due to the number of proclamations issued and the complexity of the matters involved, it's not always possible to say which matters that are being investigated by the SIU follow from corruption identified by the Auditor-General. Thank you.