110 years on, SAPS needs an overhaul

SINCE its founding 110 years ago, our police service has undergone two major changes.

The first was on April 1, 1913 when the police forces from the four colonies – the Cape, Natal, the Orange River and the Transvaal – joined forces under the command of Colonel Theodorus Gustaff Truter.

With the adoption of our Constitution in 1995, the police united with the 10 so-called “Homeland” police, under General George Fivaz.

This year, through sheer coincidence, the police service gets a budget that is in line with its age – just over R110 billion.

Most of the billions will be spent on salaries. In fact, for every R10 the police get to fight crime, R8 is spent on salaries. However, the people receiving the money seem unable or unwilling to do the job.

Take, for example, the alleged poisoning of André de Ruyter, the former Eskom CEO.

After he opened a charge of attempted murder, two detectives visited him to take a statement.

When De Ruyter told them that tests showed elevated levels of cyanide in his body, one of the detectives asked if he had problems with his sinuses. When De Ruyter questioned their knowledge of cyanide, he realised they either knew nothing about it or were not interested in investigating the matter.

Even our presidency is at the mercy of police incompetence.

In June last year, Arthur Fraser lodged a criminal complaint against President Cyril Ramaphosa after millions of dollars were apparently stolen from Phala Phala, the president’s game farm, in February 2020.

Fraser is the former head of the State Security Agency and a close ally of former president Jacob Zuma. He had reason to make Ramaphosa look bad. But the allegations he made were serious. They needed to be investigated quickly.

Yet nine months later, the Hawks, made up of supposedly some of our best detectives, are not yet done.

Their boss, General Godfrey Lebeya, recently told the media that they had collected 126 statements. But even after collecting all this information, it would seem they are unable or unwilling to decide if the president has a criminal case to answer to.

These days, it is common knowledge that the police are useless at solving crime. The often-used phrase, “police are investigating” means little more than “police acknowledge a crime has been committed”.

Take murder as an example. About 10 years ago, police were able to solve about one in three murders. These days, they get to the bottom of one in 10.

The result is that laws are broken with impunity because everyone knows you can get away with it.

The government has responded by trying to hire more people – 12 000 additional recruits last year and a further 10 000 this year. It will push their strength to just under 180 000.

But numbers alone are not good enough. We need more than simply seeing a man or woman in blue. We need them to be high-calibre people who are passionate about what they do.

We also need to introduce technology in the fight against crime.

In this, the 110th anniversary of policing in South Africa, a complete overhaul is once again needed.