For every 427 South Africans, there is just one police officer.

The SA Police Service’s 2024/25 Annual Performance Plan, tabled two weeks ago, revealed that the force cannot keep up with the country’s growing population.

It said the SAPS has for a number of years faced the prospect of an ever-increasing population versus a steadily declining staff establishment.

The United Nations standard states that there should be one police officer for every 220 people in the country

“This has several negative effects on the organisation as it struggles to keep pace with the increasing demand for policing services, an increasing crime rate and the effects of an over-stretched policing capability.”

“As the population increased from an estimated 54 million in 2014, to 62 million in 2022, so the actual workforce that was deployed at the frontline to prevent, investigate and combat crime, uphold and enforce the law and protect and secure the people of the country and their property, declined from 152977, in 2014/15, to 140 048, in 2021/22,” the report said.

Government allocated additional funding to the tune of R8.7 billion during 2022/23 to “extend and rejuvenate SAPS’ staff establishment through the recruitment of 12000 additional personnel members.”

“Total expenditure is expected to increase at an average annual rate of 5.8 per cent, from R105.5 billion in 2023/24 to R124.8 billion in 2026/27, mainly to provide for the carry-through costs of the 2023/24 public sector wage agreement, the department is set to receive additional allocations amounting to R22 billion over the next three years.”

“The number of personnel is set to increase from 183708 in 2023/24 to 186538 in 2026/27. This will be done by appointing a targeted 10 000 police trainees in 2024/25 and absorbing them as constables upon their successful completion of training against which the natural attrition of employees should be discounted,” the report said.

The report revealed that the Detective Service was not immune to decreases in the workforce and increased workloads, as the number of docket-carrying detectives was reduced from 18963, as at 31 March 2022 to 17614 as at 31 March 2023.

“Despite reductions in the number of detectives and the increasing case load, the detection rate has remained relatively consistent, over the period 2019/20 to 2022/23.”

Police minister Bheki Cele said an additional 10000 recruits will be recruited to supplement the SAPS at the end of this year.

“This is a step in the right direction for turning the tide on crime, as it will ensure that there are more boots on the ground, which will assist in properly capacitating frontline officers such as police stations.”

“Our plan is to ensure that police officers don’t sit behind desks in these police stations, but work hand-in-hand with communities and bring criminals to their knees,” he said.

Cele said the SAPS will continue purchasing drones to enhance policing efforts, with drone pilots also being licensed and efforts to recruit drone pilot interns being prioritised. “Body-worn cameras, closed-circuit television (CCTV) as well as automatic number plate recognition systems are also receiving priority.”

The Top 30 crime-heavy stations have been prioritised for resourcing and new technology to address murder and other contact crimes, and over and above this, funding has been set aside for the increase in the capability and training of the Public Order Police (POP) and the Tactical Response Teams (TRT)”