IPID in critical condition and struggling to address police criminality

17 September 2014

The DA is deeply concerned that the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) is grossly underspending its budget and thus greatly underperforming in its mandate to ensure accountability for police criminality. 

We will therefore write to the IPID Head, Robert McBride, asking what he plans to do to prioritise graduate recruitment as a means to professionalise his department. 

Our concerns stem from the IPID's quarterly performance briefing to the Police portfolio committee earlier today.

In a damning presentation, the IPID senior management revealed that all programmes of the department have failed to reach their first quarter targets by a very wide margin. 

Against an expenditure target of 25%, the department has only spent:

17% of its budget in Administration

16% in the crucial Investigation programme which makes up the core function of the IPID's mandate

5% in Legal Services 

7% in the Compliance Monitoring and Stakeholder Management programme. 

This underspending was attributed mainly to delays in the filling of previous and additional newly created vacant posts in the department.

These delays in appointing personnel have also had the knock-on effect of causing underspending in the procurement of goods, services, machinery and equipment that these personnel would need to carry out their jobs. Against an expenditure target of 25%, the department has only spent:

14% of its budget for goods and services and 10% for machinery and equipment in Administration

15% for goods and services and a paltry 3% for machinery and equipment in the Investigation programme

2% of its budget for goods and services and a disastrous 0% for machinery and equipment in Legal Services 

1% for goods and services and an appalling 0% for machinery and equipment in the Compliance Monitoring and Stakeholder Management programme.

These figures paint a deeply concerning picture of systemic stagnation and represent an unmitigated disaster in the NDP-mandated drive to professionalise the police service. The IPID is supposed to be the spearhead of accountability measures to strike at the heart of a culture of impunity for police misconduct and criminality. When established as a designated department in April this year, it was off to a shaky start but it is now clear that it is in grave danger of being completely derailed.

This cannot be allowed to happen and requires urgent remedial action. Thousands of our citizens are reliant on an adequately capacitated and well-functioning IPID in order to receive justice after incidents of police assault, use of excessive force and abuse of power. It is now time for the IPID to prioritise graduate recruitment as recommended by the National Development Plan for the public sector and proactively seek out promising young talent that can help to start to address this impending derailment of the department.

Statement issued by Zakhele Mbhele MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police, September 17 2014

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