The Portfolio Committee on Police has announced an agreement with critical stakeholders within the policing portfolio to work together towards strengthen the accountability of the South African Police Service (SAPS) to enable effective policing.

This comes after the committee on 21 August met with the Office of the Auditor General (AG) and labour unions to share ideas on finding solutions to the challenges facing SAPS officers in fighting crime.

The Auditor General informed the committee that some of the key targets that were not met over the 2019-2024 Medium Term Strategic Framework include the 1.98% increase in contact crime against the intention to reduce it by 7.48%; crimes against children increasing by 2.57%; and crimes against women increasing by 3.90%.

The committee said in a statement that it agreed with the AG that there is a challenge of ineffective prevention strategies to combat crime coupled with ineffective monitoring of action plans.

The Committee raised particular concern that there has been a significant increase of syndicates and criminal groups including extortions, with these crimes increasing at an average of 38.98% over the medium term. Recent cases of extortion in Mthatha have led to closure of businesses and schools, while the construction mafia has halted much needed infrastructure projects. Further, there has been a worrying increase of kidnapping syndicates, which all point to endemic crimes that threaten the safety and security of South Africans.

“To turn the scourge of crimes around we must confront the current shortcomings within the environment head-on, do the basics right and as a committee enhance our oversight mechanisms. This must be an era of effective, intelligence led policing to ensure that the people of Mthatha, Hanover Park in the Western Cape and Jukulyn in Pretoria feel safe,” said the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Ian Cameron.

To achieve this, the Committee emphasised the two pillars of policing, proactive and reactive policing, must be enhanced. Adequate resources should be directed at areas that will enhance policing such as visible policing, detective services and crime intelligence. In addition, the SAPS must improve enabling platforms such as the 10111 platform to ensure that it is impactful and responsive.

“It is unacceptable that there is [an] average of 26.44% in dropped calls to the 10111 function, and that on average it takes 8 to 35 minutes for calls to be answered. Such platforms are necessary to ensure speedy responses to criminal acts,” Cameron stated.

The Committee reiterated its stance that the wellbeing of members of SAPS is central in ensuring effective policing. In line with this, the SAPS management has been instructed to find solutions to the current lack of appropriate promotion policy, a step to guarantee clearer career pathing. The Committee said hopes a clear growth path will end the current trend of trained SAPS members resigning to join the private sector.

The Committee added that it believes the strengthening of policing requires a strong Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) as an additional oversight mechanism. Currently there are only 120 IPID investigators, out of over 150 000 members of the SAPS, a ratio of 1:1250. The Committee views this resource disparity as something that undermines IPID’s ability to carry out its mandate effectively and measures must be implemented to rectify this.

The Committee said it has further committed to enhanced and focused oversight, especially on critical priority areas.