Top cops don’t bother to obey order
Some senior police lack security clearance
Several members in the higher echelons of the SAPS have been denied security clearance certificates to operate at that level‚ while others did not bother to apply when asked to do so by their bosses.
This was disclosed by national police commissioner Gen Khehla Sitole and his crime intelligence chief Peter Jacobs during a meeting in parliament with the police portfolio committee yesterday. Jacobs told MPs that among the 33 high-ranking police lieutenant-generals‚ six were operating with expired security clearances.
In the rank of major-generals‚ comprising 183 senior police officers‚ five have had their applications denied and another seven were expired‚ while five others did not file their applications as required. Jacobs said the applications of 53 more major-generals were still being processed. Next on the chain of command‚ where 680 brigadiers call the shots‚ 13 applications were rejected and 19 more had expired‚ while 41 did not file their applications. Jacobs did not disclose the reasons for the declined applications – for security reasons and also because an appeal process was yet to unfold. The vetting is being conducted as part of government efforts to tackle corruption and other governance failures that have plagued the police service in the past few years. MPs have called for disciplinary action against those who ignored Sitole’s orders. Sitole said one of the challenges was the capacity to conduct security vetting in an organisation employing around 192‚000 staff members. The police commissioner said obtaining a security clearance certificate had not been a compulsory requirement for senior positions‚ which they would now change.
“… we want to link vetting with employment contracts so that if there’s any change of vetting status then it means we must revoke the employment contract‚” said Sithole.
Jacobs said lifestyle audits had been done on almost 10‚000 SAPS members. Of those‚ 99.15% “have no adverse findings”‚ with only 0.85% “flagged for further validation”.