Blue light bullies get green light to carry on

A reply to a Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question (see here) shows officers of the South African Police Service's (SAPS) VIP Protection Unit are seemingly getting away with their criminal actions without any proper disciplinary measures being taken against them. The data, released by the Minister of Safety and Security, illustrates how a rudderless Police Service has lost all ability to hold police units to account, and underscores the importance of Monday's decision by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) to conduct a full investigation into the Unit.

Officers committing serious criminal offences must be removed from the SAPS without delay, and the DA reiterates its call for the introduction of a new code of conduct for the VIP Unit, to assist in holding its officers to rigorous standards.

Alarmingly, the parliamentary reply shows that only two of the 55 misconduct charges brought against members of the VIP Unit resulted in dismissals over a four year period. This is in spite of the fact that in that time VIP Unit officers faced a number of gravely serious charges:

• Six officers faced charges of murder or attempted murder.
• 10 officers faced charges of assault, or assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm.
• One officer faced a charge of rape.
• 26 officers faced driving-related charges, many involving reckless or negligent driving. Eight of those cases included driving under the influence of alcohol as a charge.
• Two officers faced charges of damage to property.
• Three officers faced charges of pointing a firearm, or handling a firearm under the influence of alcohol.
• One officer faced a charge of armed robbery.

The data also reveals that in 2006/07, fully one-third of all cases resulted in no disciplinary hearing or criminal prosecution at all. This included cases of assault, reckless and negligent driving, rape and attempted murder. Apparently, the VIP Unit's subsequent solution to the problem was simply to scrap filing misconduct cases in the first place - the following year, misconduct cases dropped from 24 to five.

The DA will be forwarding all information obtained on the disciplinary record of the SAPS VIP Unit to the ICD, in an attempt to aid their much-needed investigation.

Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard, MP, Democratic Alliance spokesperson on safety and security, January 7 2008