Hon Chair, I would like to begin this debate by introducing myself to the Minister of Police. I'm doing this because, despite the fact that we've debated on numerous occasions, he seems to have all but forgotten that I am the shadow Minister of Police of the Official Opposition - a person who has a legitimate oversight duty over what he does, and to whom I put questions, which he has to answer.
Unlike the committee's new chairperson, Sindi Chikunga, for whom I have enormous respect, and shall miss when, if the ANC has the perspicacity, she is elevated to the Cabinet, the current Minister simply lacks the necessary work ethic. Our Whippery has now had to resort to writing to the Deputy President to point out that the Minister of Police is one of the worst, if not the worst, offender in the Cabinet in this regard and currently owes me 23 answers.
When I was first transferred to this committee four years ago, one of my more distasteful duties was to inform this country of the fact that the SAPS had squandered R7,7 million on taking 77 individuals to the Caribbean for the Cricket World Cup. The portfolio committee was simply handed the matter to rubber stamp. I wouldn't do it then, and I won't do it now. Parliament is not here to rubber stamp the Minister's excesses, his stays at the luxurious Table Bay Hotel or his extensive stay with unknown persons at the Hilton Hotel in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal - a province in which he lives and has his own home.
The Bloemfontein party was another such excess; at a time when the world markets were crashing and thousands of South Africans were losing their jobs. How appropriate was it, do you think, that the Minister should throw a party at their expense?
Indeed, the Minister might well say that he does do his duty and answers parliamentary questions. Well, I have included four answers in the 23 questions, which can only be described as non-answers.
To give an example, I put a question in relation to the party in Bloemfontein, asking for the total amount budgeted for the party; from whence the funds would come; what the costs were for transport, accommodation, venue, entertainment, food and beverages, and overtime. The Minister obviously gave this question due consideration, and after extensive consultation replied that the budget for the 2010 National Police Day is covered in the overall budget of the department on a yearly basis.
I tried again, asking further detailed questions: why officers were forced to attend and what disciplinary ramifications there would be for those who failed to attend - it was those and three other questions with several parts to them. The Minister didn't have to work as hard on this reply. His answer was that this is national day, which is observed every year.
The Minister's spokesperson said she would tell us the cost of the event, again during the event and again after the event. Here we are, still waiting. Well, we've waited long enough. Today seems appropriate and we'll await his response today.
Certainly, I've even yet to find out how much money was squandered plastering the National Police Commissioner's face on thousands upon thousands of bottles of water as though he was some latter-day Michael Jackson.
At last count, on the DA's Wasteful Expenditure Monitor, the Minister and his deputy had sucked up taxpayers' money on frivolous stays at five-star hotels and on personal "Pimp My Ride" vehicles to the tune of R7,1 million. Then, of course, there's the R130 million private jet!
While the Minister partied, I spent time touring police stations around the country. In Mpumalanga, I visited stations that could have done with some of the tens of millions the Minister has wasted. Indeed, we have about 12 stations that have no running water at all. We know that the National Police Day party was a logistical nightmare, and we know that the SAPS will never and, should never again ever attempt to join the hospitality industry. It is absolutely clear that the National Police Day debacle should never to be repeated.
The Minister's spokesperson called this party a "morale booster". Well, it was a morale booster when celebrated annually in each province, at virtually no expense and with our SAPS members a phone-call away from any provincial emergency - or they would be if the phones at our police stations were actually working! A DA survey found that more than a third of the numbers advertised by the SAPS simply don't work.
The sad news is indeed for the thousands of victims of crime who, failing to get through to their local stations, will then dial the 10111 number, only to be placed on hold or hung up on. If they do get through, the police will take, on average, 42 minutes to get to their house, or in the Eastern Cape, six hours.
The SAPS ... It is still called that today, isn't it? The SAPS? Between the Minister, his deputy and his National Police Commissioner, confusion reigns. One of the few answers I did receive to one of my questions said the Department of Police is not changing its name; it retains the name of the "South African Police Service", also referred to as "the force" for operational energy emphasis.
Not one person I consulted had any idea what that bizarre statement meant, except that it seemed you've now backed down on renaming the Service a "force" because it dawned on you that you no longer have a two-thirds majority in this House to change the Constitution.
The DA welcomed the announcement that former senior officers of the SAPS will be allowed to re-enlist, although certainly many have tried and been turned away. We also welcomed the lifting of the rather bizarre moratorium on the taking on of new reservists, although few of the stations seem to be aware of the fact that it's been lifted. It was, nonetheless, an excellent decision and will have significant positive ramifications in terms of upskilling the ranks of the police.
However, the bizarre remilitarisation of the SAPS has been another retrogressive step we could have done without. Indeed, the Minister's own SAPS members of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, Popcru, have rejected it entirely. Police in KwaZulu-Natal with whom I discussed this two days ago, find the name change absurd, and think that it's harking back to the apartheid era. I saw the Minister on television saying Popcru's concerns have nothing to do with the police. Really, Minister?
Speaking of absurd, it is absurd that we have to wait until September before we read crime statistics, which will by then be 18 months out of date. On the flip side, the Auditor-General's office has agreed, at my request, to audit the statistics at station level in the light of the criminal manipulation of said statistics by crooked station heads.
It's understandable that the ANC wants to keep the country, indeed the world, in the dark in relation to the statistics before the World Cup. But I must appeal personally to the members of our police service here today to do anything and everything to protect our football tourists from harm.
We cannot have these blue-light barbarians stopping a car full of potential German investors and forcing them to erase footage of their cavalcades running civilians off the road. Did anyone here read the headlines in the German newspapers? Has the Minister totally lost control? [Interjections.]