IPID proposes less money to investigate criminal cops who continue to grow in SAPS
29 October 2014
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) is using the mid-year adjustment appropriations to divert financial resources from its core mandate to protect South Africans from South African Police Services (SAPS) members guilty of crime. This bizarre proposal should be rejected.
I will therefore be asking the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Francois Beukman, to compel the IPID's Executive Director, Robert McBride, to act in terms of Section 7(12) of the IPID Act and provide clarity on these issues and obtain assurances that these adjustments do not further erode the accountability for police misconduct and criminality.
A reply to a DA parliamentary question revealed earlier this year that there are scores of criminal cops in our SAPS; some of them guilty of the most heinous and serious of crimes. Yet bizarrely, instead of making plans to protect South Africans from these criminal cops, government seeks to pull funding from the IPID's mandate.
In addition, the surge in SAPS's contingent liabilities by R2 billion to R20.5 billion is a clear indication that there are increasing levels of criminality within our police organisations.
An analysis of the Adjusted Estimates of National Expenditure (AENE) for this department reveals that the budget of the Investigations and Information Management programme, the core function of the IPID's mandate, is to be decreased overall by R3,6-million and the budget of the Compliance and Stakeholder Management programme is to be decreased by R1,1-million. This however is far from the worst of it.
Looking across all IPID programmes by economic classification, these budget adjustments entail a decrease of R25,3-million earmarked for staff salaries (R18,6-million of which is being diverted within the Investigations and Information Management programme) and an increase of R24,1-million in the allocation for procurement of goods and services. This should set off all kinds of alarm bells ringing.
With this bizarre budgetary adjustment, it effectively means that the IPID will not be able to protect our citizens from the very people who are meant to ensure their safety. Given that crime is at an all-time high, it cannot be that resources are being taken away from the fight against crime within the SAPS. It has direct implications in the lives of many ordinary people who rely on the IPID's effectiveness to see justice being done when they or their loved ones are victims of police abuse of power or excessive use of force, such as Ms Sarah Sande who has waited over a year for answers to the fatal shooting of her husband allegedly by a police officer in Pretoria.
Indeed the National Police Commissioner, Riah Phiyega, botched the fitness boards of inquiry into the 1448 convicted criminal cops and has displayed a lack of political will to reinstate these inquiries. It is therefore crucial that Mr McBride cleans up this mess and diverts his efforts to strengthening and discharging IPID's mandate to root out and punish criminal cops from the SAPS and not to drain funds from its primary function.
The department must not try to avoid another situation of material underspending as it had in 2013/14 (to the tune of R23,8-million) by dumping funds into spending categories where it can easily be poured out through tenders and the black hole that is procurement corruption.
This department seems to be suffering systemic stagnation and IPID Executive Director, Robert McBride's time in office has been lacklustre as he has failed to make any radical moves to prioritise police accountability. The time has come for this to change and for McBride to show he is serious about protecting many vulnerable South Africans from a SAPS in gradual decay under the baton of Commissioner Phiyega.
Statement issued by Zakhele Mbhele MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police, October 29 2014
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