Chairperson, Members of Parliament, members of the public and members of the police, the newly created Independent Police Investigative Directorate formally commenced its duties on 1 April this year. While the directorate has significantly improved on its predecessor, the Independent Complaints Directorate, it has similar constraints in regards to insufficient funding to effectively perform its constitutionally defined role as police watchdog.
The directorate is tasked with solving thousands of murder, rape, assault and corruption cases involving police across the country every year. Concerning the sharp increase in the number of cases of police brutality, murder, assault and misconduct in the past four years, the directorate's role in ensuring that police play by the book and abide by the law is becoming increasingly important.
Weak legislation and a lack of funding severely hampered the efforts of the ICD, coupled with what seemed to be a deliberate decision on the part of the Ministry to give them the smallest possible budget. This resulted in over 80% of their recommendations to the SAPS about criminality within their ranks being ignored. The directorate, with its more focused and beefed-up mandate, cannot afford to be crippled by the same challenges. The DA accordingly maintains that increasing the directorate's funding should be a priority for Parliament and government.
The directorate needs to be adequately resourced in order to effectively focus on what has been described by its director as "systemic corruption within the police and the metro police services". The IPID must be able to "attack this cancer within certain elements of the law enforcement agencies", to quote Mr Beukman.
Parliament has gone to great lengths to ensure that the directorate has the teeth to curb rogue police officers. The strengthened legislative mandate must be coupled with more appropriate budgetary commitments. [Applause.]