So Many Questions

A man has been arrested on 100 charges of child rape, assault and kidnapping. Chris Barron asked the chairwoman of the parliamentary portfolio committee on police, Annelize van Wyk . . .

Have you asked the minister to appear before you?

For what?

To explain what his police were doing while someone raped more than 100 schoolchildren?

The reality of the matter is, you are aware, that parliament is in recess and that committees are not sitting at this stage.

The suspect was arrested almost a year ago.

We only heard about it now.

Should your committee have known about it earlier?

We don’t know about every arrest.

Even when it involves the rape of 100 schoolchildren?

When they arrested him, did they know it was 100 rapes?

It was 50 at that point.

As I say, at that stage we were not aware of it.

Should communication between the oversight committee and police be improved?

Yes, definitely, and that is something we raised in our last report to parliament. There are certain things that should be communicated timeously to our committee and we expect police management to do exactly that.

Have there been attempts to keep things away from your committee?

No, I don’t think so. It’s a case of so many things happening, what do you communicate and what don’t you communicate? Anyway, this is an operational issue, so if you want someone to account for it, it should be your national commissioner.

Have you called on the minister to tell you what he is doing to hold his national commissioner to account for our national rape crisis?

I think you’re aware that, two years ago, the minister declared it the year of the detectives exactly because of concerns that he and the committee had shared about detective services and cooperation between different stations, et cetera.

Has enough been done to improve the investigation of rape cases?

I think far more could be done. Part of the problem is that the integrated justice system has not been implemented as far as it should have been.

Why not?

The committee has been outspoken about this.

Has it asked the minister?

Let me explain what the impact of this is. The guy with the 100 charges against him — the first alleged case was in Limpopo, then he fled to Gauteng. The areas where they are linking him to rape are very spread out. Different systems and stations are not speaking to each other.

Someone else was convicted of raping 12 schoolchildren, all in one small area. Shouldn’t your committee have asked the minister what his police are doing in such cases?

That’s your opinion. What is important is: Is enough being done about rape? No, I think more can be done. But we have to realise what has been put in place. The DNA legislation that has been passed will help the police to identify the perpetrator much sooner.

Is this about legislation, or training and attitude?

No, here specifically it is a question of legislation. If this had been in place, they would have been able to pick up that this was a serial rapist and link the cases earlier.

If your committee had been on the minister’s case more often, would the police record be so poor?

We have been on the minister’s case throughout. We had 54 meetings last year, all of them directed [at] oversight.

How many times did you ask the minister to attend?

I can’t remember the exact number of times, but you can’t call a minister for every single case that is happening in the SA Police Service.

Surely you can call on him to attend your meetings?

The fact of the matter is you can’t . . . you’ve got to differentiate. I find it very interesting that we want to crucify a minister if we believe the minister is interfering in the operational issues of the department, but . . .

Isn’t this about holding the minister to account?

You’ve got to give me an opportunity to answer the question, otherwise there is no use in us having this interview. We, as an oversight committee, have to be able to differentiate between operational and policy issues. We know that the minister takes our reports seriously.

How do you know that?

Because of implementation that takes place thereafter . . .

If implementation is so good, why is the police record so poor?

Nobody has ever said, including the minister, that there are not shortcomings in the SAPS.

Have party-political considerations constrained you in holding the minister to account?

Not at all. The minister said he wants us to ask the difficult questions.

Did you ask him why a national commissioner with no police experience was appointed?

That is really taking it too far. First of all, as you know, the minister does not appoint the commissioner.