Sihlalo, Ngqongqoshe noSekela Ngqongqoshe, sihlalo wekomidi namalungu alo kanye nabahlonishwa abakhona ... [Chairperson, Minister, Deputy Minister, Chairperson of the committee and its members, and hon members present ...]
... I would like to start by acknowledging the presence in the public gallery of my guest to this debate, Mr Ralph Jansen, a resident of my constituency and the head co-ordinator of the Neighbourhood Watch in Heideveld. His tireless work as a community leader is an inspiring example of the important role that active citizens can play in increasing public safety.
The work of the Heideveld Neighbourhood Watch underscores the importance of a whole-of-society approach that brings together governments and communities in the fight against crime. I hope that Mr Jansen's presence here today will remind us of the crucial need for partnerships that ensure greater security in communities and of the fact that the Police Service itself needs to be a credible and trustworthy partner in those efforts in order to promote good relations between the police and the communities they serve. I watched the Minister's interview on the View from the House programme this morning in which he echoed these sentiments and I hope that they will be seen through to clear action.
Chairperson, the National Development Plan, NDP, identifies the professionalisation of the Police Service as a key priority to ensure its competence and responsiveness. It was encouraging to hear the Minister's and the National Police Commissioner's assurances during the budget briefing process that they were indeed committed to achieving this.
A professional Police Service is not only essential to a strong criminal justice system that effectively deters and punishes criminality, but is also vital to inspire confidence in the Police Service among the public. Without this confidence, citizens distrust and fear the police and are less inclined to report crime or offer co-operation in police work.
On this score of public trust and confidence, we still have a long way to go before we can say that we have a comprehensively professional Police Service. A Human Sciences Research Council social attitudes survey published in 2011 found that 66% of adult South Africans believed corruption to be a widespread problem in the police, with only 41% of those surveyed having some level of trust in the police.
More worryingly, a future fact survey conducted in 2012 found that 35% of South Africans interviewed admitted to being scared of the police, with this figure rising to 40% in poorer communities. This is not a good story to tell. It should be criminals who fear the police, not law-abiding citizens.
These perceptions of systemic police corruption and attitudes of distrust and fear among the public are an indictment of the SAPS management's past ineffectiveness to ensure sufficiently strong accountability in the Police Service for misconduct and criminality. Without strong accountability measures to guarantee sanctions for wrongdoing by police officers, a culture of impunity takes root and thrives on the oxygen of systemic negligence and, as the hon Kohler pointed out earlier, we've had many years of that, starting from the top.
Weak accountability in effect hinders progress towards the achievement of a professional Police Service. The Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Ipid, is designed to be the spearhead of such accountability measures to strike at the heart of a culture of impunity in respect of police conduct and criminality, but unfortunately so far it has been off to a shaky start.
The DA remains deeply concerned about vacancies in senior posts and past underspending in the institution as this impedes the Ipid's ability to function optimally. In addition, concerns linger that the Ipid's overall budget allocation is insufficient for it to fulfil its mandate once it reaches full operational capacity.
Like the Civilian Secretariat for Police, the department will need more money in future to advance the goal of realising the professionalisation of the SAPS through strong accountability. We trust that the Minister will consider these concerns seriously in future appropriations to minimise the risk of stagnation in the challenging process of transforming the Police Service to make its members more competent, ethical and accountable.
Chairperson, we welcome the u-turn that was made during a budget briefing by the Ipid's executive director, namely that the institution has withdrawn its stated aim in this year's annual performance plan to seek a legislative amendment that would narrow its mandate to exclude common assault because "investigators were kept quite busy with these less serious cases". This argument was deeply flawed and undermined the NDP's objective of a professionalised and accountable Police Service, because it is precisely that caseload of assault complaints, and many others for which complaints are not lodged, that feeds the perceptions and attitudes spoken about earlier, of citizens not trusting and in fact fearing the police. I myself, as a citizen who has been at the receiving end of abuse of power by the police, would deem it to be untenable to think that we should ever allow such incidents to fall off the radar of the Ipid's work.
We were also pleased to hear that the Ipid's report on the investigation into the National Police Commissioner for allegedly tipping off the Western Cape Provincial Police Commissioner about a Hawks investigation of which he was the subject has been completed and sent to the National Prosecuting Authority for decision.
The DA in the portfolio committees of Police and of Justice and Correctional Services will monitor progress on this issue very carefully to ensure that the ends of justice are served and accountability is not undermined. This matter must be seen in the light of the NDP's imperative for a professionalised and accountable Police Service, and Parliament must play its role to help realise that.
As we mark 20 years of freedom, let us not falter in ensuring that we increasingly secure for all citizens the right to live in freedom, freedom from fear and freedom from violence. Thank you. [Applause.]