We don't have enough resources to fight crime – police

Police have conceded that they do not have the capabilities and resources to fight crime and keep the citizens safe.

On Thursday police top brass led by minister Bheki Cele was at pains explaining their top-heavy organisational structure, huge salary budget and shortage of police officers on the ground when it appeared before the parliamentary portfolio committee on police.

The top brass said it would have been highly impossible to better deal with the recent looting of property in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, which is going to cost almost R50bn in damages.  

At the time of the looting two weeks ago, the police were blamed for acting late and for being ill-prepared in preventing the large-scale looting. However, yesterday the top cops said their inability to act swiftly in preventing crime was compounded by the recent cuts to public purse which has seen the number of officers being reduced from 194,605 in 2016 to 182,126 in 2021 and is expected to drop to 162,999 by 2023.

In their presentation to the committee, SAPS's Maj-Gen Leon Rabie said due to the increasing population and reduced staff now, the ratio stood at one officer to 327 citizens. In 2012, when the country had 199,345 officers, the ratio was one officer to 254 people.

“While we see a decline in the workforce of SAPS our population has been growing and this gap is increasing and it will further increase if you take into consideration the further required deduction of staff,” said Rabie.

The force has also lost 11,703 members between 2016 and 2020 largely due to retirement, health, deaths, dismissals and search for better salaries. While the number of boots has been reduced on the ground, the number of generals and brigadiers remained inflated at 200 and 600 respectively.

Police commissioner Gen Kehla Sithole said SAPS was also facing fleet and resources headaches. “We are being judged based on the recent incidents while the public order [police] has been scaled down from 12,000 to 4,000 members.

"The air fleet has also collapsed. In 2009, we could fly up to 14 units but now nine of them are currently grounded. There is quite a large fleet of Nyalas that is grounded and we are working onto getting new ones,” said Sitole.

“Obviously we can no longer fulfil the [crime prevention] mandate 100%, we are handicapped quite a lot. There have been a growing number of police stations but the number of officers hasn’t grown. We still have a challenge of manning some of the police stations. We are working on scaling down on generals and increase the number of constables so that we have more boots on the ground.”

Committee member Princess Faku said it was hopeless to increase SAPS budget when its managers did not have their house in order. “From where I’m seating we can talk about the issue of budget but if there is dysfunctionality within SAPS, there is no budget that will assist in making sure that things are done correctly. As the committee we should hold the executive accountable.

"The commissioner has 200 generals under him and he must do an assessment to see if they are capable of doing their jobs. During this period [looting], where were these generals? Do they have necessary skills? If they were on the ball we wouldn’t have faced the issue that we faced two weeks ago,” said Faku.

Committee chairperson Tina Joemat-Peterson said the salaries of the top earners in SAPS could have been prioritised for hiring 24,000 new recruits. “We’ve had eight acting commissioners since 2009 and this has created upheaval and instability that we are now seeing.

"We have almost 200 generals and 600 brigadiers and collectively they earn R1bn... So that means 24,000 new recruits will not be brought in and these are boots on the ground that could be doing the work. What is SAPS doing about the top heavy structure?"