It is one incident in a growing list of revelations about the SAPS which is drawing the state of affairs within the police into question. For example, the continuing evictions and lockouts of police officers from their offices in at least four provinces are undermining police morale and service delivery, and pose a severe threat to the security of some of the most vulnerable communities in South Africa.
There are questionable promotions in the SAPS. Six of President Jacob Zuma's VIP bodyguards have been irregularly promoted to the top ranks of the police - with two of them jumping six ranks overnight. It is the norm in the SAPS that friends and relatives are promoted through the ranks - they are bounced through - with zero qualifications into positions of leadership.
There are reports that suspended National Police Commissioner Bheki Cele signed off on a R26 million tender awarded to a businessman who allegedly showered top police officials with expensive gifts to approve the deal.
Now, all of the things I have touched on today go some way towards explaining why it was that someone like Vusumuzi Silwana found himself so disgusted at the SAPS indifference to his 14-year-old daughter's murder that he went out and hunted down the killers himself. He did in five days what the SAPS couldn't or wouldn't or couldn't be bothered to do.
In conclusion, I especially want to thank Sindi Chikunga for her leadership. I know she was loud today, but she is an extraordinary committee chairperson. [Applause.]
Thanks must also go to the vast majority - the vast majority - of SAPS members who continue to perform their duties, even in this dark time in the history of the service. [Applause.]
The SAPS is in a worrying state - and that is putting it mildly - yet this House is expected to approve R62,45 billion. In any other democratic society in which the police, its senior management and its political heads were so deeply embroiled in allegations and counterallegations, a Minister who had been this ominously silent and this lax in effectively dealing with the situation would have done the honourable thing and resigned. [Applause.]