Illiterate police ‘a problem’
• Parliamentary committee told turnaround plan jeopardised by low levels of reading and writing skills
A significant number of South African Police Service officers cannot read or write, putting a hurdle in the implementation of the police’s turnaround plan.
A significant number of South African Police Service (SAPS) officers cannot read or write, putting a hurdle in the implementation of the police’s turnaround plan.
Details of this emerged on Thursday during a presentation by an SAPS delegation to the parliamentary committee on police matters
Deputy national commissioner of management and advisory services General Francinah Ntombenhle Vuma told the committee the SAPS planned to investigate why it still encountered officers with inadequate reading and writing skills.
“Those we appoint we make sure meet the standards. Those who are said to be illiterate, if there are any, it would likely be members close to retirement. Those who are found to be illiterate will be adopted into the Abet [Adult Basic Education and Training] programme,” she said.
Abet was introduced with the aim of supporting officers who were deprived of education during the apartheid era.
MPs on the committee were stunned when they learned about poor literacy and numeracy among SAPS members. They were even more shocked when the police officials said there was no money to implement new police commissioner Khehla Sitole’s ambitious turnaround strategy.
Sitole could not attend the committee meeting as his presence was required at a cabinet meeting. The turnaround plan includes stabilising crime hotspots, preventing and combating gangsterism, implementing the national security strategy and the drug master plan, modernising the police’s function in criminal justice and creating capacity for the overhaul and improvement of the SAPS security vetting process.
Committee chairman Francois Beukman said the SAPS turnaround strategy should have a measurable timeline.
“If this is not going to be put into the performance plan, and putting real targets behind it, then it will only be a piece of literature until the year 2032,” Beukman said.
“If this vision is not linked to a budget, it simply isn’t going to happen,” he said.
STUMBLING BLOCK
The SAPS delegation admitted that low literacy skills among officers presented a challenge to realising the outcomes of the turnaround strategy.
The parliamentary committee was disappointed that the SAPS had no concrete plans or budgets to bring the strategy into realisation in the current financial year.
MPs were told of systemic gaps in the SAPS that made implementing the plan cumbersome. Besides the low literacy levels, other stumbling blocks included fragmented units and a lack of communication with affected departments.
DA committee member Dianne Kohler Barnard told the SAPS delegation she could not accept that there remained a considerable number of illiterate SAPS officers.
The SAPS had invested in educating officers who were deprived of education many years ago, she said.
“I am shocked that there are still some who cannot read or write, especially when you need matric to get into the SAPS. You invested in adult education for officials and the officials it was meant for were those who were officers in the past, so they should be close to retirement by now,” she said.
DA committee member Zakhele Mbhele said the SAPS should be immune to vagaries of influences elsewhere and act appropriately and decisively regardless of what took place in the political realm.
Mbhele cited the longdelayed removal of the suspended head of crime intelligence, Richard Mdluli.
“It is a welcome development that the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation is moving, but everyone is aware that this is related to developments at a certain event in December. The effectiveness and responsiveness of state organisations is connected to the political will to implement such interventions,” said Mbhele.
Freedom Front-Plus MP Pieter Groenewald said: “We must also be fair and agree that the national commission should have been here but the executive must coordinate with us. New appointments are people with experience and now we expect results.
“We want no excuses now when it comes to the fight against crime.”