Madam Deputy Speaker, hon Deputy President, for the three Ministers who participated in the debate, it was indeed a baptism of fire, I think. The two Bills before us establish a directorate within the SAPS that will address organised crime in an integrated, co-ordinated and focused manner by doing the following: bringing together the best people for the job; supplying them with all the necessary financial and other resources; and providing them with the legal mandate required in order to fight organised crime effectively and on all frontiers. The Bill is a vast improvement on the Bill that was first introduced in Parliament. These improvements came about as a result of the intensive process of public hearings and engagements in, sometimes, robust debates in the joint committees.
I want to focus on a couple of provisions in the Bill that provide a legislative framework that makes this directorate an effective crime- fighting directorate. Firstly, this directorate is now a directorate within the SAPS that was established by law. There is only one way in which this directorate can be closed down. It can be closed down if its mandate has changed or its focus has been redirected through legislation. This is an important factor as it underlines just how important the fight against organised crime is to this ANC government.
The Bill, as it was introduced, gave excessive powers to the national commissioner in terms of the appointment of the head of the directorate, the vetting of staff for the directorate and the selection of cases to be investigated by the directorate. In the amendment of the Bill, these issues were addressed. The position of the head of the directorate was elevated to become that of a deputy national commissioner. Not only does this reflect on the importance of the directorate, but it also enables direct responsibility in terms of performance. The head of the directorate shall be appointed by the Minister in concurrence with Cabinet. The Minister shall report to Parliament on the appointment of the head of the directorate. Staff to be appointed to this directorate shall be appointed on the recommendation of the head of the directorate. Furthermore, the head of the directorate now also plays a much more direct and independent role in determining cases to be investigated by the directorate.
The Bill aims to make sure that this directorate is staffed with people of the highest integrity. In this regard, over and above the normal security clearance members of the directorate would have to undergo, the legislation also makes provision for the declaration of financial and other interests by members of the directorate and their immediate family members. Provision is also made for further integrity testing which may include random entrapment, testing for the abuse of alcohol or drugs and the use of polygraphs or similar instruments to ascertain the truthfulness of a statement. Measures have been put in place to ensure that the manner in which this integrity testing will be done will protect individuals' rights and confidentiality. Though these measures might be considered intrusive, it is absolutely necessarily to ensure that we maintain the integrity of the unit and its staff at all times and that it should not be compromised by the actions of isolated individuals.
The Bill, as amended, places an obligation on other government departments to take the necessary steps to assist the directorate in the achievement of its objectives. This, together with the secondment of relative staff and the appointment of legal officers in the directorate, will ensure a multidisciplinary approach which the opposition would like to portray as if it has been sacrificed. It has not been sacrificed.
It is a pity that the inability of some to look past the current situation and instead focus on the broader picture and priorities cloud their judgement and the ability to engage with this legislation in a constructive manner. Furthermore, there are clear diagnoses of election fever amongst some members of the opposition. This fever is clearly making it difficult for them to distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and fairytales.
Throughout deliberations on these two pieces of legislation, we had to hear that the Scorpions was the best crime-fighting unit ever and that the SAPS does not have the capacity to deal with such complicated cases, as if members in the SAPS are a bunch of people who cannot think. Even more troublesome was how some members of the opposition badmouthed the SAPS in general, like they did again today in the House. It is these very members that would come here or go on television and act as if they cared about members of the SAPS. We warned against this. After everything is said and done, it is still going to be the SAPS and its men and women in blue who must bear the brunt of the crime in our country and who constitute the barrier between law-abiding citizens and criminals. It is them we rely on to provide a safe environment in which our country and our people can grow to achieve their fullest potential. How do you then justify these statements aimed at breaking down the morale of the police and demolishing the trust of the general population in the police?
Yes, the DSO was successful, and that is why we are bringing the best practices and people in it together with the SAPS so that we can strengthen the crime-fighting capacity of the SAPS. But it is simply not true to say that they were the only successful entity in fighting crime. Let us compare apples with apples. First of all - Ms Kohler-Barnard said this - the formula used by the DSO to determine their conviction rate differs from that of the SAPS. The DSO simply takes the number of cases that were finalised in courts and then, based on the successful convictions from those cases, determines their conviction rate. The SAPS, on the other hand, determines their conviction rate against the number of cases they have in their books. So, if the SAPS has 1000 murder dockets and 100 goes to court - of which they secure 30 convictions - they will then say they had a 3% conviction rate. For the same figures but with a different formula, the DSO will say they had a 30% conviction rate, not taking into consideration the 900 outstanding cases.
The commercial branch of the SAPS's statistics are determined in the same manner as that of the DSO. So, let us look at their statistics. They achieved a success rate of 92% and, in fact, 50% of the accused pleaded guilty in these cases. It is important to highlight the fact that these cases are of the same complexity as cases dealt with by the DSO - for instance, the crayon case in the East Rand. Within the SAPS, we have the organised crime unit and a unit for serious and economic crimes. In the past financial year, 2007-08, a total of 154 leaders of organised crime were identified. Of these, 131 were arrested by the organised crime unit of the police - an excellent figure indeed. It is also not only the DSO that had successes in the seizure of assets, but, in fact, so does the SAPS's organised crime unit. In 2007-08, about R49 million worth of assets were forfeited to the state through investigations performed by the SAPS. Let me mention some of the seizure success rates of the SAPS: about R23 million worth of vehicles was recovered; R8 million worth of stolen property was recovered; R11 million worth of cigarettes was recovered; and almost R23 million worth of cocaine was recovered. [Interjections.] [Time expired.] [Applause.]