Civilian Secretariat for Police & IPID 2020/21 Annual Report; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Deputy Minister's opening remarks

Mr Cassel Mathale, Deputy Minister of Police, said that it was an honour and privilege to come before the Committee to submit the annual reports, which Members had interacted with quarterly. He was happy and proud that the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service (CSPS) had continued to excel in terms of its management and the administration of the resources that the National Assembly had accorded to it. The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) had given the CSPS a clean bill of health. The Department was gradually gravitating towards a completely clean audit at all of its entities.

The Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) had been the leading light, and the CSPS had followed suit. He was quite certain that it would continue in this trajectory. As presented last week, SAPS had also improved in its audit outcome. He was quite certain that this time next year, all of the entities would have audit outcomes to be proud of, and that the Committee could proudly say that it had effectively and successfully provided its oversight. The successes that were registered were because the Committee held the Department and entities accountable. This puts them on their toes, guides them and makes them better. It was always a privilege and opportunity to appear before the Committee.

He congratulated the Secretary for Police Service and his team for a job well done, which had earned them a clean audit.

CSPS 2020/21 annual report

Ms Itumeleng Ledwaba-Moagi, Director: Strategic Management, CSPS, said that the CSPS had heeded the advice from the AGSA in the areas that required improvement from the previous year, and had since graduated back to a clean audit outcome this year. AGSA had commended the CSPS as a department for its consistent review of compliance matters and enhancing its internal controls. AGSA had indicated that this was the best practice, and had to be maintained for a clean audit going forward. In the five-year period, from 2016/17 to date, the CSPS had a total of three clean audits and two unqualified audits with findings.

Mr Hendrik Robertse, Acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO), CSPS, covered the financial information. The Department had spent 96%, or R131.5 million of its adjustment budget of R137.2 million. The projected cash flow for the same period was R134.5 million, or 98% of the final allocated budget of R137.2 million. The spending was 2%, or R5.6 million, lower than anticipated. The under-spending was mainly due to the compensation of employees (CoE) and vacant funded posts that were not filled during the financial year.

(See attached document for details)

Mr Alvin Rapea, Secretary for Police, added that the under-spending on vacant funded posts were directly impacted by the issue of employee turnover -- how many people were leaving and how many were being appointed, the time it took to fill a vacancy and the nature of the appointment. There were more people recruited than the vacant posts, because people were also recruited internally by being promoted to positions – they competed with the rest of the country, but were found to be the best candidate. This meant that the number of vacancies did not change, because people were filling posts from within. Instead of being guided by the 10% vacancy norm, CSPS had given itself a stretched target to ensure that it kept on filling the vacant posts more quickly.

Discussion                                                          

The Acting Chairperson congratulated the CSPS, under the leadership of the Secretary for Police Service and the Ministry, for the consistently good performance of achieving a clean audit. According to the report, it had achieved a clean audit for the past three financial years. He asked that the Committee receive the management letter from the AGSA, which would include the full audit findings, so that the Members were kept abreast and could keep track of how the CSPS would move forward. As the CSPS provided the Committee with the recovery plan, it would monitor the progress.

He knew that the Committee would be worried about the under-spending, because whether under-spending was R1 or R100, it remained under-spending. Members understood the reasons provided, but he encouraged that it be worked on to avoid under-spending. If under-spending was continued, at some point it would affect the budget -- the CSPS budget would be reduced if it was unable to spend the whole of its budget. He was worried about the comment that it took about three to six months to fill a vacant post, and this needed to be improved.

Mr A Whitfield (DA) congratulated the CSPS on some of its improvements and audit outcomes. Clean audits were an optimal result in terms of compliance, but the issue of impact must be considered. He was very pleased that the CSPS had set out their desired impact, which was to achieve improved levels of trust through effective civilian oversight, to achieve outcomes of improved police community relations, as well as trusted and accountable police service. It was very clear that the desired impact was not yet achieved, nor had the outcomes been achieved. One must question the achievements in complying with predetermined indicators, and whether those indicators were in fact linked to the desired impact that was to be achieved. He asked whether the CSPS had effected any savings by migrating over the past year and a half to a more virtual workspace environment. There had been limited physical meetings, whether on-site in offices or off-site at other venues. How much had they identified in savings?

He asked whether the CSPS had made any policy or legislative recommendations to the Minister on measures to improve discipline within the South African Police Service (SAPS). This was a very topical issue and something that the Committee had been very proud to champion. The CSPS played a key role in improving community and policing relations, by ensuring that there was proper discipline management.

He asked when Parliament could expect to receive the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill. This had been championed by the Committee since 2019. This Bill had been outstanding for almost five years. The Committee needed some information relating to the timeline as to when Parliament could expect to receive the Bill. He was pleased to hear that there had been some progress on the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) Amendment Bill, but the presenter had stopped short of explaining what the status was, and had simply said that the status had been discussed in a particular forum. He asked for an update on the status so that the Committee could track that timeline. Members were two and a half years into their term of office, and needed to ramp up the pressure on legislation.

It was known that forensics capability had all but collapsed in South Africa, with a backlog that was now out of control. The delays on the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill had been well documented. This had resulted in nearly 100 000 convicted Schedule 8 offenders being released on parole, without their DNA being added to the convicted offenders’ database. The impact of the CSPS in respect of this was questionable. How many meetings of the DNA Board had been held in the 2020/21 financial year -- or perhaps, how many of these meetings had the CSPS attended? Had there been any specific interventions initiated by the CSPS to arrest the declining performance of the forensic laboratories, in respect of DNA analysis, which was already self-evident in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 financial years, respectively? This was to identify what preemptive action steps had been taken over the last two and a half years to avoid the current situation which forensics found itself in.

Mr O Terblanche (DA) commended the CSPS on their audit outcome, but noted that there was still under-spending, as had been the case in the previous financial year. The Department relied heavily on output performance, and the outcomes were not really that visible in areas where one would like to see a difference being made. He agreed that Members should receive the management letter from AGSA, as mentioned by the Acting Chairperson, so that this could be dealt with properly. The largest under-spending was recorded in the legislation and policy development programme, which was obviously the main service delivery programme of the CSPS. He questioned why this was the largest under-spending area -- what were they going to do to bring about some improvement?

With Covid-19 expenditure, it was quite notable that there was no spending in the first quarter, there was a spending of R139 000 in the second quarter, no spending in the third quarter and the bulk of the spending was in the fourth quarter. He was concerned whether people were properly protected during the earlier part of the financial year, and whether that was a dumping at the end of the financial year just to ensure that the money was spent.

He was curious about the survey that had been done amongst the police regarding their job satisfaction. What was the job satisfaction amongst the police? The CSPS should also explain how best they used technology during the lockdown phase to reach the public and to pursue and enhance whatever they were supposed to do.

The one research project that was mentioned, which was really interesting and that the Committee needed to be informed of in more detail, was that of discipline management in the police. That was a serious concern which would be discussed more when the Committee was briefed by the IPID.

He asked to what extent the CSPS had enhanced the performance of the forensic laboratories.

Mr H Shembeni (EFF) commended the CSPS for the sterling performance and audit outcome. It was said that four assessment reports had been done on the functioning of the national forensic DNA database during the 2020/21 financial year. In this period, the size of the database had decreased to 743 730 forensic DNA profiles, from 1 616 525 profiles in 2018/2019. This was attributed to challenges with the poor compliance rates of detectives taking buccal samples from persons arrested and charged for Schedule 8 offences, as well as the significant increase in the DNA backlog. For 2020/21, 207 840 profiles were expunged on the database, while only 4 693 new profiles were loaded. Had the CSPS picked up on the serious decline in the DNA database? What steps were taken to address these findings? Did the reports contain any recommendations to SAPS or to the Minister of Police, and what were these recommendations?

A contract was awarded for fumigation for 12 months -- what was the name of that company? Why were there no Covid-19 procurements during the first quarter of 2020, in light of the fact that the lockdown started in March 2020? The issue of legislation had been addressed, but not in full, Members would like to hear the progress with regard to various pieces of legislation that were under way, especially the IPID Amendment Bill, the SAPS Amendment Bill and the Firearms Control Amendment Bill.

He asked that CSPS provide clarity on the number of contract employees. Why was there a turnover rate of 200% on contract employees?

Ms P Faku (ANC) thanked the Committee for the opportunity she had been given to serve in this Portfolio Committee, she had learnt a lot from all of the Members. Friday would be her last day as a Member of Parliament and she just wanted to thank the Members very much for playing a big role in making sure that she became a better person in her oversight role.

She appreciated the good work that the CSPS was doing, which also showed that the Committee had played its oversight role in making sure that good governance was seen in the Department and entities. The CSPS had received an unqualified audit opinion, with no findings, but there had been a few issues raised by the AGSA, with an emphasis on material under-spending. This was mainly the compensation of employees, where about R5 million was under-spent in that unit. This finding was also found in the previous financial year. The CSPS needed to try and improve on the areas that the AGSA had emphasised. The CSPS must be congratulated, because it was not easy to receive a clean audit.

She agreed that the Committee should receive a copy of the management letter. The legislation and policy development programme were one of the under-performed targets. The performance and spending should be closely aligned. She asked if Members could get an explanation on what had happened with this performance.

She reiterated the concerns regarding the IPID Amendment Bill, and asked if the Committee could get an explanation on what the serious challenges concerning the Bill were. Perhaps the mandate of the IPID must be expanded. She asked for a clear indication of what was happening with this Bill.

The Acting Chairperson said that he was saddened to hear that Ms Faku was leaving the Committee, but he hoped that she was leaving for greener pastures.

Ms L Moss (ANC) congratulated the CSPS for its clean audit, but she concurred with the Acting Chairperson that there could not be a clean audit with a Rand or R2 outstanding, and then a full budget for the CSPS would not be approved the next time. Before the recess, the Committee had met with the Member of the Executive Committee (MEC) for Community Safety and Community Police Forums (CPFs) of the Western Cape in September to discuss the outstanding matters of last November. She asked the CSPS what it would do to address the concerns raised by the Western Cape's CPF cluster chairperson. There was supposed to be an annual general meeting (AGM), which did not take place. While other provinces' CPFs were said to have the best performance, what made the Western Cape the “Aspoestertjie” (Cinderella)? Why were they always the last bone on the body? That was why this province had a mess with safety issues. She would like a proper answer on this issue.

What portion of the ten Community Safety Forums (CSF) workshops had taken place virtually? She suggested that the CSPS should provide the Committee with an organogram so that Members could see exactly where and what kind of vacancies there were, including what kind of skills were required. It was understood that if specific skills were needed, then vacancies were advertised internally. She asked that the CSPS clarify which positions would be filled internally and which positions would be filled externally, so that Members could understand the delay in filling those vacant posts. She referred to the 3.5% rollover from the budget, and asked when the rollover would be finalised.

Mr Terblanche asked the Deputy Minister when the Secretary of Police Service's contract expired, and if the Department was taking that into account. He asked that the Committee got clarity that this was going to be dealt with effectively and timeously.

CSPS’s response

Mr Rapea confirmed that his contract ended on 20 December 2021. This would be his last time presenting the annual report to the Committee. He agreed that the management letter from AGSA would be shared with the Committee. Usually when reporting, the CSPS went into detail on the issues that were raised and how they would be dealt with. In the previous year, it had dealt with all of the issues that AGSA had raised. The management letter would be made available to the Committee as soon as this meeting ended.

It was correct that the desired impact and desired outcome had not yet been reached, because this was a five-year strategy. The milestones that were reported should ultimately, at the end of the five years, show whether or not this had been reached and, if not, what would be done to deal with the issues affecting the desired outcomes and impact.

The CSPS had made recommendations regarding the measures to deal with discipline. For instance, in the SAPS Amendment Bill, a clause had been inserted to state that the SAPS must have a dedicated resource to deal with discipline and not have people who were ad hoc in dealing with discipline, because that was the reason why there were inconsistencies in the application of discipline and in terms of the sanctions that were given, and the different interpretations of the policies. Recommendations were also made with the regulations. As part of its oversight, the CSPS had identified that the regulations had a shortcoming in the reinvestigation of the cases that IPID had identified. The CSPS had made recommendations to the Minister. Disciplinary management was a negotiated issue. When dealing with the discipline regulations, there must be a resolution with the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSBC) to approve the discipline management, and the Minister would then regulate it. This process had started and was being strengthened.

Cabinet had approved the DNA Amendment Bill, which would go straight to Parliament. After the administration was finalised, there would be a tabling of the DNA Amendment Bill, and very soon -- perhaps before the end of this month -- the Speaker and Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) would receive the tabling.

With regard to the legislation and policy development programme, there would be a dedicated meeting with the Committee on 24 November, when the CSPS was supposed to report on the legislation and policy development programme. It would just highlight a few things and leave the details for when it appeared before the Committee on 24 November. Adv Dawn Bell would answer the questions related to these legislative developments.  

With regard to job satisfaction amongst the police, a survey was done internally of the job satisfaction amongst CSPS employees, but the CSPS had not done this with SAPS. However, it had been said that SAPS had done a survey in that regard, and perhaps they would be able to respond to that.

In the past year, the CSPS had had three DNA Board meetings which he had attended, but it actually had a task team that worked on those issues who reported to the main board.

Mr Robertse said that the amount of savings affected during the year, due to the use of technology, would be around R4 million to R5 million, which was found mainly in goods and services. The largest saving was on travel and subsistence, and this money had then been reallocated towards the purchase of more information technology (IT) equipment and services, so it had been moved from goods and services to capital.

Regarding the Covid-19 spending, there were several questions around why it seemed as if there was not much spending in the first quarter and then a lot in the last quarter. This was mainly an accounting issue, and not necessarily a spending issue. There was a special allocation in the system to keep Covid-19 expenditure, and during the year there were various kinds of expenditure. In Annexure 8 regarding the financial statements, Members could see the expenditure on goods and services, and fleet services in the fourth quarter, but that expenditure, especially for fleet services, was over the full financial year. It formed part of the normal expenditure, and in the final months of the financial year, it had been moved out of the normal spending towards the Covid-19 spending. The same applied to the compensation of employees where, during the hard lockdown, it was necessary to have some of the frontline workers and cleaning staff to come into the office regularly, and because there was no public transport available to them, the Department's vehicles were used with certain drivers to bring them to the office and take them back home. That expenditure was also allocated towards Covid-19 only at the end of the financial year when there was a proper reconciliation on what that spending was.

The CSPS had taken note of all the concerns regarding the under-spending, and the fact that the AGSA raised this every year, especially around the compensation of employees. The CSPS were really trying to improve on the filling of vacancies. There were a lot of internal promotions, so when one post was filled another one became vacant. It seemed as if there had been no movement in the employment figures, but this was due to not bringing in new people and promoting people internally. That influenced the situation, and also created a problem with the vacancies and the savings on vacancies.

As far as the legislation, policy development and research sub-programmes' under-spending was concerned, these two sub-programmes actually had the largest number of vacancies during the financial year. Just under R2 million of the R5 million in under-spending on compensation belonged to those two sub-programmes, which was the main reason for that under-spending. For goods and services, there was only about R125 000 that was not spent during the financial year.

Adv Dawn Bell, Chief Director: Legislation, CSPS, said that the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill was being processed to the Speaker and Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for tabling. The CSPS had drafted a presentation that would be presented to the Committee at next Wednesday's meeting, which would go into depth on the progress on all the Bills that the CSPS was busy with.

The IPID Amendment Bill followed the proposals that had been made to extend its mandate, for IPID to include law enforcement agencies. The Office of the Chief State Law Adviser had raised constitutional issues over that, which would be explained in detail in the presentation next week. The Bill needed to be taken back for redrafting and be circulated amongst key stakeholders like the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the implementers -- being IPID themselves -- as well as SAPS. Their comments had since been incorporated and the Bill had been sent to the Chief State Law Advisors for comments on the constitutionality of some of the proposals that had been made.

There were some issues on the SAPS Amendment Bill being dealt with around the budget regarding the transfer of CPFs from SAPS to the CSPS. Once that process was dealt with, the Bill would proceed through the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) cluster for submission for introduction, which should be early in the new year.

The Firearms Control Amendment Bill had been published for comments, which had been received and dealt with. The Bill had been redrafted and there were certain areas that needed a legal opinion, which had also been forwarded to the State Law Advisors for their advice on the constitutionality of certain proposals. Once this had been received, it would proceed with the drafting of the Bill.

Ms Dipsy Wechoemang, Chief Director: Corporate Services, CSPS, said that the job satisfaction survey was part of the CSPS’s implementation of the integrated human capital strategy. The job satisfaction survey was done internally. The project and questionnaire were approved by the Secretary, but the return of the questionnaire by the employees had been poor, which was the reason why the CSPS did not achieve 100% for its integrated human capital strategy. It had been optimistic to assume that the return of the questionnaire would be 80% - 90%, because they had not achieved that. However, this year the CSPS undertook to pilot the project which started with corporate services and then the whole of the CSPS. They did an electronic version of the job satisfaction survey, as the first one was manual. Perhaps the return of the questionnaire was also affected by the hard Covid-19 lockdown. Looking ahead, whatever the CSPS implemented, it would find out how the employees felt about it in order to improve their retention.

The recruitment was a moving target.  As the CSPS made appointments, other employees would leave for better promotional opportunities that the CSPS could not offer internally. The contract employment was filled in the same manner in which the permanent posts were filled. There were no funds to create permanent positions, so contract employees were appointed on a 12-month basis as required by Public Service Act (PSA) regulations, and they were remunerated on the vacant posts that were available. For instance, if a post was vacant for three or six months, those funds were used to employ contract employees. When those positions were filled, the money was depleted and therefore they were let go. Unfortunately, they were needed on a permanent basis, but there were no funds to create permanent posts in the current structure.

Mr Takalani Ramaru, Chief Director: Civilian Oversight, Monitoring and Evaluation, CSPS, said it had been monitoring the DNA analysis or the work at the laboratories, focusing specifically on areas that would enable the labs to do their work. For instance, there were five areas that had been focused on.

Firstly, was the supply chain or contract challenges, where CSPS would follow-up and go to the lab to ensure that there was equipment and that the chemicals were readily available.

The second focus was related to procurement, where it was discovered that for regional labs to operate all the time, it relied solely on the national lab, as it did not have its own financial authority. This was a recommendation to management and to the Ministry, which had now been resolved so that regional labs were also given financial authority for them to be able to attend to day to day requirements which were not that expensive.

The third focus was on issues around personnel, especially when looking at the case registration. It was found that across the labs, there were challenges amongst administrative staff who forgot to receive the exhibits and the case dockets. It had been recommended and stressed that this area must be resolved. These issues had been resolved in some areas, though not fully. There were measures being put in place to ensure that case registrations were happening, so that the downstream processes could continue.

The fourth area monitored was the implementation of the new system, which obviously came with its teething challenges. The CSPS’s role was to ensure that the system was being implemented, and with the challenges identified, to make recommendations for them to be improved. One challenge was the issue of registration and the handover of bulk dockets or bulk exhibits, which was a challenge as it had to be done one by one. However, based on the recommendations, the team unit and State Information Technology Agency (SITA) were resolving this challenge.

The fifth focus was on the issue of infrastructure, such as the buildings used for the labs, specifically looking at the challenges experienced in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN),and partly in the Eastern Cape. There had been recommendations regarding this, as well as to address the issue of security for all four laboratories. All of the above issues would be focused on and would continue to be monitored regularly.

The four assessment reports on the functioning of the National Forensic DNA Database were produced by the DNA Board Secretariat, and those reports did have recommendations. For example, with the issue of monitoring contract management processes, there was a recommendation with regard to the establishment of the Forensic Investigative Unit (FIU) that was in accordance with regulation 12.1 of the amended DNA regulations.

Mr Benjamin Ntuli, Chief Director: Intersectoral Coordination and Strategic Partnership, CSPS, said that the mandate of the CSPS as far as the CPFs were concerned was to provide them and their associated structures with guidance and to facilitate their proper functioning. The issue of the CPF's structural operations or its setup rested within the SAPS, and once that was established per police station, the CSPS provided training in terms of its functionality. However, the challenges in the Western Cape were that for a couple of years, the Western Cape Government had started by starving the CPFs of support resources, such as office space and so forth. The programme had been pushed for it to work only with the neighbourhood watches and community patrollers. When the Western Cape conducted CPF elections, it did so exclusively on its own, but once they had conducted those elections they were supposed to conduct elections at a provincial level -- that was from the district model up to the provincial level -- but it did not go that route. There were actually no other provinces' CPFs, other than the Western Cape, for which the CSPS was providing workshops, servicing and facilitation. The problem was that there was a legal battle between the national police and the MEC for Community Safety in the Western Cape regarding the recognition and ensuring that those structures were being set up.

Mr Rapea reminded Mr Ntuli that were were questions regarding the delay in the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with stakeholders to build safer communities, and the number of workshops facilitated on the establishment of the Community Safety Forums (CSFs).

Mr Ntuli said that about 82 persons had been trained in the first batch, because the grant covered about 80 persons. The training was broken into three groups. The first group completed training, but when the second group should have commenced, the service provider -- in this case, the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), which was party to the agreement -- said that they could not continue to train the second group if the Safety and Security Sector Education and Training Authority (SASSETA) failed to pay for the first group. The CSPS had had a series of meetings with SASSETA, but SASSETA had addressed more of the technicalities regarding the format of the contract. SASSETA had given the CSPS the format at the inception of the contract, so it had used that format. However, now that payment was due, SASSETA was focusing on technicalities that should have been different, which was delaying the process. The first group had not even been able to graduate because WITS could not issue those certificates without payment from SASSETA. SASSETA was meant to play its role, at least for the first training that already started.

Mr Rapea added that the delay in the signing of the MoU was because there were a lot of changes in leadership within SASSETA, and this had caused the delay in finalising the MoU. The MoU had finally been signed.

Ms Bilkis Omar, Chief Director: Policy Development and Research, CSPS, said that research on the discipline management referred to the research on the effectiveness of the SAPS internal disciplinary system. The study was conducted in nine provinces by the provincial secretariats. There was a strong coherent legislative framework that supported the management of discipline in the organisation, and this was the SAPS Discipline Regulations, 2016. The findings showed that members found it to be a user-friendly framework. However, there were challenges with the implementation of these discipline regulations. There was room for improvement in implementing them. Some concerns were related to the differential sanctioning for the same offences for different provinces. This had been attributed to inconsistent training in discipline management, conflicts of interest and abuse of power. The CSPS had also done a trend analysis in the nine provinces and found that there were inconsistencies in the implementation of sanctions for the same offence.

Other issues concerned the application of the “expeditious process” in dealing with the serious misconduct cases. The first concern was related to section 9(2)(b), where employees were denied the right to representation, which disadvantaged them. The other concern was that the expeditious process gave the employer the upper hand during the disciplinary process, which made the employees more vulnerable to dismissals. The third concern was that the expeditious process was believed to be mostly instituted against officials occupying lower positions, compared to senior managers, which resulted in contestation between SAPS and organised labour during the disputes.

There were concerns about the use of lawyers, because lawyers tended to delay the disciplinary hearings. Another concern was the interpretation of regulation 4(m), which required an independent and separate investigation into alleged misconduct. So, if a criminal case had been opened for a misconduct case, there was an internal disciplinary investigation which must be undertaken, while there was a separate criminal investigation as well.

Generally, there was a concern regarding the lack of standardised training for discipline management of the disputes. The SAPS Amendment Bill addresses the issue of a fully resourced structure to manage cases of discipline. For instance, the Correctional Services Amendment Bill had a dedicated structure, and it worked very well there.

The SAPS human resource management division had held a strategic planning session and invited CSPS to the session. The CSPS had attended and presented the study on the SAPS internal disciplinary system to them. Lt Gen Lineo Ntshiea, Divisional Commissioner: Human Resource Management (SAPS), had said that many of the concerns were being addressed currently, and the CSPS worked very well with her team on this project.

Mr Rapea reminded Mr Robertse to address the question of the name of the company that had been contracted for fumigation.

Mr Robertse said that the company was called “Mafanisa A Trading”. They had been appointed by the proper processes, as prescribed by National Treasury; and because the full contract was less than R500 000, it had been done through the quotation system. Around R60 000 was spent during the year just on fumigation and on the cleaning of the offices.

Follow-up questions

Mr Terblanche asked if the Deputy Minister would respond to his question, as he had not got a proper response.

Mr Shembeni asked about the exact amount that had been paid to the fumigation company. He had heard Mr Robertse say that it was R60 000, but he had seen it was R90 892.26. What was the correct amount paid to Mafanisa A Trading?

Ms Faku requested that the Committee proceed with the next presentation. She suggested that perhaps a document could be sent to the Committee Secretary to address Mr Shembeni’s question. The Deputy Minister had responded to Mr Terblanche’s question, as he had said that the Secretary of Police Service's contract expired in December.

Mr Terblanche asked that his question be addressed by the Deputy Minister.

Responses

Mr Robertse said that the amount which Mr Shembeni had mentioned was correct. The document that he had first referred to was only for the first six months, and not for the full financial year, so the full amount was R90 892.26.

The Deputy Minister said that the Secretary of Police Service's contract expired on the specific date of 20 December 2021. The Ministry was dealing with the matter to ensure that it did not lapse without proper communication between the Minister and Secretary, and this was being attended to.

He added that the machines that were problematic within the forensic space had been fixed, except one machine that had a problem with a component that was not working. This was due to contract issues not being resolved timeously, so by the time it was resolved and the machines had to start operating, one of the machine's components had malfunctioned and had to be ordered from the United States. He was pleased to say that he had received a message from Lt Gen Ntshinga, Deputy National Commissioner: Crime Detection, with a picture that showed that the component had just arrived and would be fitted to the machine. By the end of business today, the machine would be operational.

Despite the fact that this machine was not operational, the statistics in a briefing that took place last Friday showed that there had been movement with addressing the DNA backlog. He was quite confident that the forensics division was starting to eat into the backlog and that it had managed to turn the corner as far as the DNA situation was concerned. The Ministry would continue to monitor and interact with the forensic division to make sure that this matter was properly attended to.

On the post promotion processes, there were personnel within SAPS that would come on board in the forensics division, including the brigadiers and lieutenant colonels who had been in “acting” posts for quite some time, that would become confirmed a full-time posts. This had been a previous concern raised by the Committee, where Members were concerned about “acting” posts in the forensic space. The matter was being addressed. Other posts would be confirmed on 1 December. He was confident with the progress made and welcomed the Committee to visit the forensics lab in Cape Town to observe the progress. This was a project that the Ministry had been fighting for, together with the Committee. Members were invited to observe the forensic lab to see that indeed there had been progress. It was quite encouraging, because it had not been easy, but this had been responded to appropriately.

He thanked the Members for the opportunity that had been given to interface with the Committee, and he commended the Secretary and his team for a job well done.

Additional comments

The Acting Chairperson confirmed that the management letter should be made available to the Committee, as agreed by the Secretary. Noting that the Secretary of Police Service's contract expired in December, he urged that the process be put in place so that there were no inconveniences and no long wait before appointing a successor.

The submission of Bills to Parliament needed to be fast-tracked, and the Committee noted that next Wednesday it would receive a detailed presentation on all of the legislation by the CSPS. The Committee needed a presentation regarding the recruitment strategy and a report on the disciplinary system, so that Members could understand these concerns better. Whether recruiting internally or externally, it should not take three to six months to fill a position.

He congratulated the Ministry, the Secretary and his team for the good work that they continued to do. Members of the Committee were pleased that there was not just a clean audit, but there had also been an impact within the community.

IPID 2020/21 annual performance report

Ms Dikeledi Ntlatseng, Executive Director, IPID, presented the overview.

Mr Patrick Setshedi, Acting CFO, IPID, covered the annual financial statement. The Department did not incur unauthorised expenditure in the year under review. It had registered in the irregular expenditure register and disclosed in the annual financial statements (AFS) an expenditure amounting to R712 000 on the non-compliance with public service regulations. The internal disciplinary hearing had commenced to determine an appropriate action against the implicated officials.

The Department had retained an unqualified audit opinion. However, there were two matters of emphasis from AGSA.

Ms Suzan Letlape, Director: Strategy and Performance Monitoring, IPID, covered the performance information.

● Programme 1(Administration) performance was 20% (one out of five targets achieved);

● Programme 2 (Investigations and Information Management) performance was 69% (nine out of 13 targets achieved);

● Programme 3 (Legal & Investigation Advisory Services) performance was 100% (all four targets achieved); and

● Programme 4 (Compliance Monitoring and Stakeholder Management) performance was 100% (all eight targets achieved).

The overall departmental performance was 73% (22 out of 30 targets achieved).

(See attached document for details)

Discussion

Mr Whitfield said he welcomed all efforts to exercise the IPID’s independence. The move to obtain legal advice with respect to receiving technical reports outside of SAPS must be welcomed. This was creative, as IPID could not fulfil its mandate and achieve any impact in dealing with the consequence management elements of wrongdoing within the police unless it could exercise its independence to the fullest extent.

He asked the Executive Director whether she had made any recommendations to the Minister and/or to the CSPS on how she believed IPID’s independence could be strengthened. It would be helpful if she could enlighten the Committee with what those recommendations were.

He recalled that in 2019, he had questioned whether the high rate of instances where the NPA declined to prosecute cases investigated by IPID was a result of the poor quality of investigations. He had received a very defensive response at the time, and had emphatically been told that this was not the case. It was therefore very refreshing that the new Executive Director had acknowledged that the poor quality of investigations was a cause of the NPA declining to prosecute cases. One had to be able to admit where one's shortcomings were if one was to address them.

The Committee had been informed that the IPID had appointed legal quality assurers to address the ongoing challenges. How many legal quality assurers have been appointed and under which programme? More importantly, had the Executive Director established a quality assurance framework which was being monitored regularly, and how often was it being monitored? The quality assurance element was fundamentally important to consequence management. While one observed that SAPS did not fully respect, through its own disciplinary processes, the authority and mandate of IPID, and often concludes with contradicting findings, he believed that if the quality assurance was tightened, this would start yielding results and there would be an improvement in the conviction rate due to an improvement in quality.

He reiterated that it was welcomed that IPID was exploring how to exercise its independence in terms of receiving those technical reports, because it seemed that there was no silver lining over the short to medium term in terms of ballistics, DNA and other technical matters within the SAPS forensics division.

Mr Terblanche commended the IPID for their unqualified audit, although there was still an issue of insufficient evidence provided, which was something that really needed serious attention. It was very difficult to measure true performance if consequence management was not properly instituted.

He was worried about the case backlog that was growing day by day. There was a backlog of about 39 000 cases. He asked whether IPID was really making the impact that they were supposed to be making. At this growing rate, it was quite obvious that the number of cases did not get the attention that they deserved. Although Mr Whitfield had already addressed concerns over the quality of investigations, if one looked at the whole process of the investigations, in some instances there were poor investigations and in other instances the prosecuting authority did not respond quickly enough. The conviction rate was really so appalling that if this trend went on for much longer -- he was sorry to say it -- but apparently the IPID was fast becoming a toothless bulldog. It was there, but it was not really serving its purpose.

The deaths in police custody, rapes while in police custody and the apparent suicides in cells were getting out of control. It was not a very good picture at the moment. Something very drastic would have to be done.

He had read a media report this week, that the IPID had handed in a 61-page report in connection with the late Lt. Col. Kinnear’s assassination. Apparently, they had evidence that two Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) detectives had not done their work -- they had prima facie evidence of a crime that was likely to be committed, and that could possibly have prevented the assassination of the late Lieutenant Colonel Kinnear. He asked if it was true that there was such a report and where the report was at the moment. Was it only a report, or had they opened a criminal case for investigation? What was the status of the report?

Ms Faku said that she was very impressed with the work that IPID had done thus far. Although at times they did not agree, she echoed the comments of Mr Whitfield, and agreed that there had been a great improvement. The innovative ideas that they had come up with must be commended, especially with the matters of emphasis raised by the Committee. The Committee must appreciate it when good work was done. She told the Executive Director that she must not be discouraged by the words of Mr Terblanche, and that if Mr Whitfield had given a thumbs up then she must know that they were doing a great job. She commended the improvement in the audit outcomes, but encouraged them to ensure that next year there would be a clean audit with no findings.

In a meeting on 14 October last year, there had been an indication of a decline in the NPA prosecuting cases, due mainly to poor investigations, and it was also said that these cases would be reopened. What had been the findings when analysing those documents? How far were these processes now? What were the recommendations to ensure that IPID improved on the investigation into these cases?

Mr Shembeni said that during the 14 October meeting, the Executive Director had indicated that the NPA had declined to prosecute some cases due to the quality of the investigations. The National Director of Public Prosecutions had said that some cases did not warrant prosecution. To mitigate this challenge, IPID had appointed legal quality assurers to address these challenges. He asked if this was a once-off, or a permanent quality assurer mechanism. Under which programme were these legal quality assurers appointed?

What role, if any, did the Legal and Investigation Advisory Services play in terms of monitoring the legal requirements or merits of a case prior to it being referred to the NPA for presentation -- especially in light of the NPA sentiment that the IPID investigations were lacking in quality, which had led to the low number of criminal convictions? IPID was regarded as a specialised body that dealt with police from all ranks. He explained that a crime had different elements, and questioned whether IPID could differentiate a crime, or determine if a crime had been committed or not. If it was said that a case could not be prosecuted, then it meant that the case did not have the elements of a crime, but one expected IPID to have high quality investigators. He questioned the type of investigators that IPID had, and asked what criteria or requirements were followed to enlist investigators at the Directorate.

In October 2020, the Executive Director had further indicated that those cases that were declined for prosecution would be reopened and analysed to determine what they lacked. How would this process work? Would these detectives be appointed on a contract basis? Had there been visible increases in prosecutions as a result of these interventions?

SAPS often declined to initiate disciplinary actions on IPID recommendations, without proper reasons being provided. What steps was IPID taking to address these shortcomings?

Mr Whitfield asked what progress had been made by IPID to develop indicators which would actually measure the impact that they wanted to achieve, as opposed to the outcomes or outputs. This had been discussed on a number of occasions and he hoped that the commitments that had been voiced to this Committee had not been lip service. The Committee needed to know what actual steps had been taken to develop indicators that would help measure whether IPID’s mandate was making the impact that it was designed to make. He asked the Executive Director what steps had been taken to reformat and reformulate the indicators, which had been largely compliance in nature, and just a tick-box exercise in many respects. If IPID was able to develop those impact indicators, then it would certainly shine a new light on its performance in respect of its mandate.

He acknowledged that Ms Faku would be leaving the Committee, and advised her to not put words in other people’s mouths, as this drove a wedge between colleagues in the Committee.

Mr Terblanche said that it was quite obvious that there had been a significant increase in the number of civil claims in the 2020/21 financial year. He asked if there was an explanation for this increase.

Mr Shembeni asked the Executive Director if she took information from people that she did not know, or if she needed to know the people who had information for her to attend to. He asked this, because he had received a complaint from somebody who had wanted to meet the Executive Director with important information, and she had declined to meet that person. That person was in custody again, for the second time. He had mentioned this person, who was arrested for trespassing, in the meeting last week. He questioned how one could be arrested for trespassing in a public office.

There were a lot of problems in the Free State that had to be attended to. He would like to see IPID playing its role, as there were a lot of cases that were not coming forth to be investigated. The Executive Director had a duty there, and should not take the mandate from the officers in SAPS, because it was the prerogative of the IPID to investigate cases for the people of South Africa on police officers who were doing wrong. The Executive Director was looked at to help deal with those officers who take the law into their own hands, especially in the Free State.

IPID’s response

Ms Ntlatseng referred to the question on whether she had made any recommendations with regard to strengthening IPID’s independence. She said she had raised her concerns about the threats to IPID’s independence, especially with regard to its capacity. The issue of capacity had been raised by her predecessors, but she would continue to lament that as long as it had 175 investigators and there were 180 000 police officers, IPID would never make an indelible mark unless it had capacity.

IPID had quarterly forum meetings with the Secretary of Police, where these recommendations were shared and discussed. The Secretary knew that one recommendation for IPID to make an impact on police misconduct on police brutality was that it should be part and parcel of the disciplinary hearings of SAPS, as it was not invited to these disciplinary hearings. If a matter had been raised or there was a criminal case against an officer, IPID should also be given the opportunity to sit in on those disciplinary hearings to make an observation. Sometimes people were given verbal warnings and others given written warnings, especially for serious offences. IPID would continue to urge that it be made part and parcel of those disciplinary hearings.

Currently, the disciplinary process of SAPS was very subjective, which meant that the punishment given to one person in one province differed from the punishment given to another person in another province for the same offence.

The recommendations continued to be made on a weekly and monthly basis, when IPID sends its recommendations to the Minister and Secretary of Police. IPID continually discusses these matters, where it was fighting for its own independence.

On the question regarding recommendations following the declining prosecutions of the NPA, based on the quality of investigations, she said that IPID had met with Adv Rodney de Kock of the NPA, who had raised these recommendations on several platforms. It was agreed that there would be a forum for IPID to submit its recommendations directly to the national and provincial offices, and where there were issues, they should respond timeously. She was aware of, and wanted to address, the issue of quality in the IPID.

Regarding the legal quality assurers, now and then the IPID was reminded that there were not enough funds. She had therefore resorted to engaging with the Department of Justice, which would provide it with quality legal assurers. In a meeting, it had been agreed that they would first enter into a partnership, which was currently being drafted with IPID’s legal service. The legal quality assurance would assist IPID to ensure that the cases were ready and were of quality, because one of the complaints in a meeting with the NPA had been that the elements of crime were not defined for prosecutions to go ahead.

Through its Justice College, the Department of Justice had committed to train all of IPID’s investigators on how they should prepare their cases to go to court, and this process was ongoing. She was happy about this partnership, because this would assist with the cases. IPID had identified the four hotspot provinces to ensure that it dealt with the high number of backlog cases.

IPID was in the process of establishing a quality assurance framework, with the assistance of the Department of Justice, which would guide it to assert if a case was ready for prosecution and what it must entail. The process of engaging had already started to address the challenges with IPID’s cases.

Despite the limited capacity of IPID’s own internal legal service, where only five people serviced nine provinces, she had requested her legal team to come up with a concept document to address how IPID could give assistance to its investigators. The document had already been submitted and was being looked at by the Department of Justice. Her dream was to see prosecution-led investigations by IPID. She would like IPID to be on par with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the DPCI, and the only way this would be achieved was through good quality investigations.

Ms Letlape referred to the question regarding impact indicators. She said that IPID had recently had a strategic planning session where it reviewed its plans. The issue of measuring IPID’s performance at an impact level had been strongly discussed during the deliberations. Before formulating an indicator, IPID first needed to have an understanding of how exactly it would measure the impact; and before the indicators were introduced, it needed to ensure that it had systems and processes in place that would enable it to report the performance accordingly towards the achievement of those impacts. These discussions had started, and one of the resolutions was that a team must be nominated to work on this item.

Ms Ntlatseng referred to the issue of insufficient evidence being provided to AGSA, despite the unqualified audit. She said that IPID would definitely ensure that it gave as much information as was required to support or back-up any pronouncement or information that was outstanding.

Mr Thuso Keafelakae, Acting Chief Director: Investigations, said that IPID acknowledged that year-on-year it experienced a spike in backlog cases. The assaults were particularly becoming a serious problem. IPID had also taken note that some of the classifications, such as complaints of discharge of official firearms, were areas of concern, because the numbers were going extremely high.

IPID had decided to develop a strategy that was province-based, because there were dynamics where certain provinces generated more cases that others. A practical example was that there were the big provinces called the “P4" -- Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Eastern Cape -- that contributed 75% of cases. The cases that were most problematic were the assaults and complaints of discharge of official firearms. The province-based strategies that were developed were monitored on a weekly basis to track progress.

IPID realised that the increase in these classifications, such as assaults, was becoming very problematic. Through the statistical data, it was observed that whilst IPID was making inroads on rape cases and death cases, assault was becoming such a problem that IPID had made a decision that there must be a strategy to focus strongly on the assault cases. He had been given the task to look into these assault cases. There had been progress thus far, and a document would be produced to the Executive Director within this quarter.

When comparing the 2019/20 financial year with the 2020/21 financial year, the statistical data generally showed that there was a slight decline in other classifications. Although there was a decline, it was not good enough, given that the numbers were still pretty high. Even though it looked like there was a downward trend in reported cases, one case of death reported was too many. The rape cases were creating a problem, in that it causes real anxiety and fear by nature. Rape in custody was one area that the IPID had been addressing, and in this financial year there was one case relating to the previous year, but all of these cases had been completed and currently no new cases had been received for this classification.

It might appear that there had been inroads, such as the number of corruption cases decreasing, but IPID would not let its guard down and be deceived by the decline, or less reporting of such cases. It would continue to identify cases of corruption and make sure that they were addressed. It needed to deal with matters of corruption, because corruption was one area that was giving the country a hard time. There had also been inroads on systemic corruption, and some of these cases had been dealt with in the financial year under review. However, there were still some cases where IPID was determining whether they were classified as cases of systemic corruption. Overall, the strategy to reduce the workload and deal with the backlog would be completed in this quarter.

While dealing with these cases, IPID had also experienced the challenge of shortage of personnel. This was a compromise, because there might be a good plan to implement but at times there were cases of a serious nature, such as death or rape cases, that had more focus directed to them. However, the strategy to deal with the workload would be available in the next quarter, with a clear indication on how it would be implemented.

Ms Ntlatseng said that IPID had also gone out to the communities to start profiling, because it realised that the number of cases did not equate to the outcry of the public. People were complaining that the police were corrupt, and that the police took bribes. IPID was going out to the communities to do their own awareness campaigns and engage communities on different platforms. She hoped that in the third quarter report, IPID would be able to show what it had done to engage with communities. It continued to engage with radio stations, especially targeting community radio stations to communicate with people. Cases were coming in through the toll-free number; and where there was a need, IPID partnered with the DPCI.

Mr Ramafoko, Director: Legal Services, IPID, referred to the legal services' participation in improving the quality of investigation and ensuring that there was an increase in the number of cases that were prosecuted. It had developed the concept document which the Executive Director had alluded to earlier, and had also engaged with the Justice College to further the training of the investigators. There had also been engagements with the NPA's investigating directorate (ID), where there was an MoU in which the two parties support each other to increase capacity. The unit had recruited a number of interns who were being trained to give support to the investigations. Hopefully, in due course, the impact of these interventions would give the desired results.

Ms Ntlatseng said that there had been a serious leakage with regard to the late Lt. Col. Kinnear report, to the extent that IPID felt as if its security had been breached. This would compromise the investigation. A forensic investigation would be done to determine who had leaked the report, because there were so many processes that still needed to take place before the report could finally be handed over. Nevertheless, IPID did have prima facie evidence that there were senior members who had not done their work. People had indicated to them that there had been a threat to murder the late Lieutenant Colonel Kinnear. The case had been opened; it was number 5361 of 2021 at the Cape Town central police station. The report was not yet completed, because there were other investigations that were still taking place. There were senior members of SAPS who had not cooperated with the IPID, and actions were taken against them so that they could give IPID information on what had happened. The preliminary report had been submitted to the National Commissioner of Police and the Minister. IPID had written to the National Commissioner for plans to discuss the recommendations made in the report, and what action the National Commissioner would take. She suggested that a meeting could be arranged with the Committee to discuss the report itself, so that Members could understand how the case would be investigated.

IPID had acknowledged that the quality of investigations had not been good. The NPA was assisting it on a monthly basis with the reports. The Department of Justice was on board and would assist IPID with their legal team. IPID wanted prosecution-led investigations. There were cases that had been reopened, and some discrepancies had been identified. These cases would continue to be investigated.

She noted that IPID needed to look at the criteria of the investigators that were employed, and although the IPID Act of 2011 had entry requirements of matric, IPID was a different field altogether and forensic investigators were needed on board. Fortunately, when reprioritising positions, IPID prioritised them to accommodate such kinds of skills. It needed forensic investigators on board to assist with the cases, so that it could make an impact and improve the quality of investigations. The Department of Justice and the trained investigators would reopen some of the cases which had been closed due to insufficient evidence, or where the case did not warrant a prosecution.

She referred to Mr Shembeni’s question regarding the complaint, and replied that she knew exactly who he was talking about. She said she had opened doors for the complainant and told that person to bring her sufficient evidence so that the case could be investigated. She realised that IPID had certainly investigated some of the cases that he had brought to them. The last conversation that she had with that person was not a very good one. He had actually insulted her and he had not told Mr Shembeni that. He had insulted her and told her how useless she was. She was not happy, but that had not stopped her from investigating any information he had brought to IPID.

The IPID office in the Free State was dealing with some of the cases, but she had also deployed her national task team to go to Free State on Friday to engage with the husband of one of the complainants, who had informed her that there were many cases that needed to be talked about. Her national task team would engage and get as many cases as possible at the Free State office in order to start dealing with those matters. When these matters were reported in the Free State, she had at first appointed the provincial head to look at them, but had realised that there were challenges. She had now appointed the national task team which was specialised to look into all of the issues that had been raised, so that IPID could continue to investigate all of the corruption and challenges that were taking place in the Free State office.

Follow-up discussion

Mr Terblanche said that he had not heard a response to his question about the civil claims.

Mr Ramafoko replied that there had been an increase in the number of civil claims against IPID. Given the history of the civil claims received, some dating back to 2009 -- in the time of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) -- it was noted that when people were confronted with an investigation or when IPID was on their track regarding their misconduct or criminal activities, they tended to try to deter IPID from executing its mandate by logging these civil claims. The more IPID received cases against the police, it expected an increase in the number of civil claims, the majority of which did not go anywhere. To this extent, IPID was in collaboration with the State Attorney to develop a policy called the “contingent liability policy,” through which IPID would be able to remove all the old matters in the contingent liability report and in the list of cases, just to maintain a particular rate. However, IPID would definitely receive more cases, the more it executed its mandate.

Deputy Minister comments

The Deputy Minister thanked the Executive Director and her team for the outstanding presentation and response to the questions. He said that the Department and entities viewed their interaction with the Committee as an engagement that sharpened their understanding and guided them on how best to perform their services. There would be interaction with the Committee on a quarterly basis, to update and appraise the Committee of the performance with regard to resources that had been allocated toward this financial year. The questions that Members ask do help to correct the shortcomings and as a result, for them come up with improvements and present better reports to account to the Committee.

Closing Remarks

The Acting Chairperson congratulated IPID under the leadership of the Executive Director and Ministry for achieving an unqualified audit opinion, although Members were worried about the few matters of emphasis. He urged that IPID work on those matters, so that in future it worked towards a clean audit. One of the matters of unauthorised expenditure had been submitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) through National Treasury. He suggested that it be requested that the Chairperson of this Committee engage with the Chairperson of SCOPA, so that the matter could be attended to.

IPID had said that it would review its organisational structure, to ensure that it was within the budgetary constraints and became more effective. The Executive Director had indicated that there were areas where she was not happy, especially with the minimum requirements for employment of certain categories.

He noted that in the presentation document, there was a typographical error for the figure relating to the performance target for the number of investigations of rape while in police custody that were decision ready. This typo would need to be corrected.

The Members had stated that they were not happy with the under-spending. He did not think that there was any explanation that could satisfy the Committee when the budget had been under-spent. There were complaints about finances, but when IPID under-spends then it would complain further about the budget, because Parliament would have to review the allocation given to IPID if it was under-spending. Although IPID had done a good job, moving forward, each and every little cent should be spent to deliver services to the people.

Members would meet on Friday 19 November to get a briefing from the Minister regarding the crime statistics before they were released publicly.

The meeting was adjourned.