SAPS 2011/12 Annual Report: Public/ Stakeholder Hearings; SAPS Financial Report

Meeting report

Researcher’s Summary and Analysis on SAPS Annual Report 2011/12
The Parliamentary Research team began by noting that many of the SAPS targets were unreasonably low and that success in these areas should therefore not be seen too positively.

In terms of Strategic Outcome oriented goals there were two main focuses. The first was to ensure that South Africans felt safe and the second was ensuring adequate access to SAPS service points. In light of this, a number of goal statements were developed, such as reducing the number of serious crimes, increasing the percentage of court ready case dockets for serious crimes and increasing conviction rates. It was noted that these had not fully been realised.

Departmental Expenditure was briefly discussed according to Programme. There was an overall negative variance in budget of 1.1%, amounting to R617 million. The bulk of this came from Administration where 5.4% of the budget was unspent. The highest over expenditure was in Detective Services, amounting to 2.5%.

The Department of Police developed a total of 56 measurable targets for 2011/12. The performance in this respect was poorer than previous years. Only 38 of the 56 targets were achieved, a success rate of 68%. The Crime Intelligence Programme had the highest success rate, with 100% success.

Programme 1, Administration
There was a 60% success rate with 4 targets not being achieved. The first of these was to maintain the expenditure ratio of not more than 71/29% for compensation/operational expenditure. The real ratio was 73.2/26.8%. The second target was to have 100% firearms ‘dot peen’ marked. Only 86% were marked. The third target was to have 90% capacity projects to be completed, but only 30.6% were completed. Finally, rather than the planned 70% of IS/ICT annual funded projects to be completed, only 54.5% were. Given the vast under expenditure in this Programme the failure to meet such targets, and in some cases by a substantial amount, were described as concerning. Aside from demanding answers for such failures to deliver, emphasis was also placed on the capital work projects. Despite this target having been met, the original target of 70% was very low. Availability to SAPS service points in rural areas remained low and citizens in these areas were being indirectly discriminated against. There remained question marks over the IT environment and Supply Chain Management, where the Office of the Auditor-General had raised suspicions of irregular contracts being awarded and lack of compliance with due process. The discrepancy in success rate and targets regarding capacity projects was reiterated as being of appalling proportions and required a direct explanation.

Programme Two, Visible Policing
Again 60% of targets were met, with eight out of 12 being failures. The target to reduce the number of reported serious crimes by 2% was missed by 1.2%. Instead of reducing the number of contact crimes by 4-7% the Department was only able to achieve a reduction of 2.3%. Trio crimes increased rather than decreasing by 4-7%. The number of vehicle recoveries as a result of policing action decreased substantially rather than increasing by 3%. Liquor recoveries did not reach 10% either. The number of escape incidents from police custody, rather than decreasing by 50%, in fact increased by 50%.

This programme received the bulk of the budget, indicating its centrality to the Departmental mandate. This contradicts the low success rate. As long as crime rates are not decreasing, the successes of other programmes become irrelevant. It was further noted that the failure to meet targets was accompanied by a 1% over expenditure of budget. Of the reduction in crime targets, only one was vastly over-achieved: the reduction of serious crimes in rural areas. This was reduced by 25%, substantially more than the target of 2%, begging the question why the target was set so low in the first place and whether or not the reduction achieved was genuine. Highlighted failures included the glaring increase in escapes from police custody and the impact of non-compliance by station commanders in the recovering of illicit drugs and illegal liquor.

Programme Three, Detective Services
This saw a 78.9% success rate and an over expenditure of 2.5%. This programme was arguably the best in terms of performance and this illustrated substance to the commitment in the Programme to improving service delivery. Nevertheless, those targets not achieved included the percentage of registered Serious Organised Crime Project Investigations successfully terminated, number of serious commercial crime-related cases investigated where officials were involved in procurement fraud and corruption related cases and the 92% of case exhibits processed within 28 working days. The final target reached only 77.39%. It was also noted that where targets were exceeded, such as in the detection rate for crimes against women, these targets were possibly too low.

Programme Four, Crime intelligence
Both targets were met and there was a negligible budget over expenditure. There was concern over the lack of measurable targets that reduced oversight potential.

Programme Five, Protection Services
It met three out of five targets and had a budget surplus of 1.9%. There was one security breach in VIP Protection Services and another in sub-programme for Static and Mobile security, comprising the two failed targets.

Auditor General’s audit report
SAPSA had managed to receive an unqualified audit (with findings) for three years now. Findings were noted in three major areas. The first was leadership, in which it was observed that commanders at station level exercised insufficient oversight over reporting on predetermined objectives. There was also a degree of instability that raised concern. The second area, supply chain management, raised concern about the contracts which did not adequately protecting the interests of SAPS and a seeming lack of support from its Legal Services. In the third area, performance information, reporting on performance objectives was unreliable. The Auditor General recommended implementing an IT governance framework, monitoring the effectiveness of IT systems and pursuing an integrated IT system.

Annual Financial Statements
Compensation of employees was shown to have increased by 10.4%, while operational costs had increased by 2.6%. Total expenditure therefore increased by 8.2%. The researchers suggested the Committee demand assurances that under expenditure would not be repeated. A summary of expenditure was provided according to Programme. A few further financial issues were noted (see document).

Successes of the Department of Police (see document for details)
▪ An unqualified audit opinions (with findings) for the past three years.
▪ Reduction in murder rate to the lowest levels in many years and in contact crimes and other serious crimes.
▪ Re-establishment of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) units in the clusters.
▪ Increase in the number of detectives over the period under review.
▪ SAPS intensified operations for the confiscation of illegal firearms.
▪ Only 3 police stations do not have functioning Community Police Forums (CPFs).
▪ Improvement in national average reaction time for serious complaints both in progress and already occurred.
▪ Performance improvements in Criminal Records and Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL), despite FSL failure to achieve their target for 2011/12 due to the high increase in queries.

Challenges of the Police Department (see document for details)
▪ Although virements had not exceeded the 8% according to law, large amounts of money were shifted between programmes. This points to inadequate planning. Under-expenditure points to a new pattern of spending?
▪ Reduction in contact crime, serious crime and trio crimes was not sufficient to meet the low targets set.
▪ Lack of control systems in supply chain management (SCM), particularly assets.
▪ Lack of easy access to police. Police stations built by SAPS took many years to build at very high costs.
▪ Provision of basic services to police stations (electricity, water and sewage) is extremely slow.
▪ Key service delivery issues identified during oversight visits to police stations and training academies included:
 - Inadequate measures to ensure safeguarding of SAPS and exhibit firearms at station level.
- Presence of amnesty firearms in the stores long after they were meant to have been sent for disposal.
- Poor state of archives and SAPS 13 stores.
- Inadequate implementation of the relevant legislation passed by Parliament.
- Community allegations of corruption by SAPS members, high numbers of untrained detectives, shortage of detectives and resources allocated to them, and ineffective security of dockets.
- Ill-discipline at some of the stations and at the training academies, particularly amongst staff/trainers.
- Ineffective management at station level in overseeing staff and recordkeeping.
▪ The slow pace of implementation of sector policing and lack of vehicles is cause for concern.
▪ The lack of clearly defined and costed implementation plans with clear timeframes, especially in the IS/ICT – Technology Management Service (TMS) and Capital Works Programmes of the SAPS
▪ The lack of prioritisation of victim support and the delivery of adequate Victim Friendly Rooms (VFRs) is slow.
▪ Allegations of corruption, nepotism, and mismanagement against the Previous National Commissioner, the former Acting National Commissioner, the former Head of Crime Intelligence, two Divisional
Commissioners for Supply Chain Management as well as many others in the IS/ICT environments and the building services environments have prevailed in the period under review. A number of people have been
dismissed and suspended, while others have resigned. A number of large scale investigations are under way.

The researcher also spoke about interventions (PSIRA, IS/ICT, SIU) required during 2011/12 and outstanding issues to be considered by the Committee (see document).

Discussion
The Chairperson asked if the breakdown of expenditure according to personnel was correct as per Treasury requirements and it emerged that it was.

Institute for Security Studies (ISS) submission
Mr Gareth Newham, Head of the Crime and Justice Programme at ISS, began by introducing key crime trends in a graph. There had been progress since 2002/03 where crime had been at an all-time high but statistics were beginning to level out rather than continue decreasing. He suggested that there was too much reliance on police and that in many cases other departments were better placed to combat crime, especially through collaboration with communities. Key security threats were described as aggravated robbery, trio crimes, public violence, crimes affecting business and targeted group violence. Statistics in these areas were not decreasing as expected, compared to other countries in similar economic positions.

Aggravated robbery referred to a broad category of crimes that combined theft and violence. It included hijacking, bank robbery and street robberies. This form of crime had a major impact on perceptions of public safety and there had been only a marginal decrease in 2011/12 from the previous year. The previous two years had seen a 16.4% decrease. Effective intelligence policing can easily have an effect on robberies, especially those on the street so the failure to make an impact is worrying. It was also noted that only 33% of victims are estimated to actually report street robberies.

Trio robberies such as residential robberies and business robberies were receiving varying results. Vehicle hijacking decreased by 10.7% and residential robberies decreased by 0.7%, but business robberies increased by 8.8%. Victims of Crime Surveys showed that residential robberies solicited the most fear in people but it was estimated that only 61.4% of victims report these crimes to the police.

Violent public protests were a worrying policing challenge and had been increasing for a number of years. From 2008 to 2009 there was a 289% increase. Municipal IQ, an independent local government monitoring agency showed that in the first six months of 2012 there had been more protests against local government than in any other year since 2004. This was confirmed by SAPS statistics which showed a 25% increase from the previous year. There were an average of three violent incidents each day across the country and increases were recorded in seven of the nine provinces. North West and Eastern Cape saw 76% and 60% respectively. Mr Newham suggested looking beyond SAPS to combat this growing concern.

Crimes affecting businesses were leading private companies to increase spending on security. There were reports of decreased productivity and motivation as business and small businesses were often reluctant to expand out of fear of being targeted. Commercial crime was a hugely broad category, but had increased substantially between 2004/5 and 2010/11. Fortunately there had been a minor increase between 2010/11 and 2011/12. However, it is a largely unreported crime as many businesses preferred to deal with it privately. Only 26.3% of victims reported fraud to the police. Shoplifting reportedly decreased by 8.3%, possibly due to increased security measures at large shopping centres or the reluctance to report the crime.

Targeted Group Violence was broken down into subcategories. Vigilantism was an unreported crime but was estimated to account for 5% of total murders. Gang violence had flared up in the Western Cape and Gauteng and the strategies used to combat this possibly needed to be revised. Xenophobic violence was also unreported and quite erratic. The root causes were not being targeted. Farm attacks were increasing steadily.

Mr Newham said that the SAPS crime statistics were extremely useful but that the categorisation of crimes was too broad. Murder rates were not necessarily broken down into root causes and context, making it challenging for policy developers to target them. The statistics were also only provided once a year and were therefore out of date. He also said that the use of police crime information could be made more effective if independently audited to avoid errors. They should be regularly and punctually released and use community efforts like neighbourhood watches as sources. He compared the SAPS system to the UK crime statistics which were available in conjunction with Google Maps.

The SAPS code of conduct and ethics should also be emphasised, as beyond being signed they were not always used to gauge performance. Adherence to these codes should be linked to rewards and promotions, and breaches should be dealt with by disciplinary measures as a matter of priority.

Mr Newham said that there was a trust issue between the public and police and that this was partly a mere perception but also performance based. People should be encouraged to report both good and bad policing. A more comprehensive complaints system should be promoted and made available to the public.  There should also be reliable mechanisms for dealing with misconduct. The SAPS Annual Report did not clearly give information on internal investigations following misconduct. He wrapped up by saying that perceptions of corruption were widespread and that there appeared to be an increase in incidents of corruption despite little information in the Annual Reports of investigations and the outcomes of prosecutions. Improved information in this regard was requested.

Discussion
Ms D Kohler-Barnard (DA) asked about public violence and whether there were any statistics relating to arrests and prosecutions for this. She also said that it was well known that there were thousands of corpses at state mortuaries awaiting autopsies. Only once this had been done would figures reflect their cause of death so it was likely there was skewing of statistics in this regard. She also observed that the spending on private security by businesses was almost the same as the SAPS budget and asked how this compared to other countries in a similar situation. She suggested SAPS member discipline was taking place internally rather than through the criminal justice system as was meant to be done – and she asked Mr Newham if this was likely.

Mr M George (COPE) said that he had three questions. Firstly he wanted to know what the root cause of ill-discipline was in SAPS. Secondly, the relationship between SAPS and the public was poor and subject to negative perception, but he asked how this could be changed. Finally he asked what was causing criminality within SAPS and expressed disbelief that it was due to low salaries.

Mr V Ndlovu (IFP) asked after the increase in farm attacks and specifically the causes. He suggested that they may be economically or labour relation motivated.

The Chairperson asked if there were any suggestions over spending shifts.

Mr Newham said that there had been many arrests for public violence but very few convictions due to breaks in the chain of evidence. The murder rate reliability was hampered by autopsy delays but this has improved over the years. Private security companies are growing throughout Africa. Neighbourhoods show inverse proportionality between private security and crime rates. It would be ideal to create a partnership between these companies and SAPS resources.

In terms of misconduct and corruption, these are an occupational hazard all over the world. Individuals who are not operating under correct supervision in the public sphere were often exposed to the dark side of humanity and were susceptible to immoral incentives. The key was not to expect more of police officers but to give them less freedom through increased accountability. Individuals could generally be expected to get away with whatever they could under difficult conditions. Mr Newham said that it would be better to have fewer, more professional and more honest police officers than more and unregulated police officers. A positive professional ethos should be encouraged. Gang violence generally escalated over turf wars and related to the drug market. Ironically effective police intervention in drug supply would create tension between gangs and increase violence but this was not a definite link and should not be relied upon. Farm murders were high risk as there were pockets of wealthy individuals based in rural areas. They were also isolated from police service stations. They may relate to labour or personal relations that soured. He said that creating a new body for crime statistics was not necessary but that SAPS statistics should be audited for reliability. Mr Newham ended by emphasising quality over quantity when it came to SAPS members. Although there had been a focus in recent years on high volume trainees, the quality of their training and vetting had suffered as a result. It would be better to have fewer, better paid police. There should also be better management of expectations as it was often this, rather than actual performance, that led to perceptions of poor quality on the part of the public.

Civilian Secretariat for Police submission
Ms Florence Mathomane, Director of Police Performance at the Civilian Secretariat for Police, began by giving a background to the institution, saying that they were established according to Section 208 of the Constitution and functioned to monitor the performance of SAPS and assess the extent to which SAPS had adequate policies and systems in place.

A technical analysis on capital projects revealed that there had been under spending despite the carry-over of building of police stations and capacity projects. This was an area of specific priority for the President and the Minister and basic services required a lot of attention. In terms of asset management there were sufficient bullet proof vests for all members but they were not all being utilised. The number of official firearms needed to be assessed so as to guard against oversupply. The National Commissioner has set a process for doing this. Attention needed to be given to the management of vehicles at police stations and SAPS garages. Allocation of resources needed to be done according to the revised Resource Allocation Guide (RAG).

In terms of Detective Services, training had improved but there was not necessarily a correlation in the impact of services in the field. Detection and conviction rates still remained to improve to a satisfactory level. The development of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) unit was encouraging but there was a failure to retain capacity. There had been progress in capacitating members to deal with issues related to victim empowerment, but SAPS had to ensure that Victim Support Facilities were utilised. The CJS revamp was discussed, especially the fact that there had been under spending. Although 76% of targets had been achieved, specific projects still needed to be unpacked and projects needed to be assessed based on their impacts on the revamp.

Transformation and professionalisation of SAPS was also a Ministerial priority and although SAPS were meeting racial targets there was a need for broader understanding of transformation that went beyond race and gender. Representation of women and people with disabilities remained low. There was a need to align systems within SAPS such as the Internal Audit Inspectorate and the Performance Management Chart to enable greater professionalism. There was a relatively good anti-corruption strategy but implementation was not always satisfactory. There should be more serious consequences for breaches of the code of conduct and SAPS should put into place systems of ensuring greater accountability of leadership.

In ICT there was an on-going concern on the planning and implementation of ICT systems within SAPS. A key challenge was to look into integration in a manner that would enable effective management of information. There was dependence on State Information and Technology Agency (SITA) to deliver Information Systems and this was causing delays.

The Secretariat recommended that SAPS should strive to achieve at least 90% of its targets per programme and that an integrated information infrastructure and capacity project plan that spoke to both the building of police station and capacity projects should be developed with the Department of Public Works. The revision of RAG was encouraged. SAPS should strive also to achieve a clean audit rather than an unqualified audit report. The impacts of targets achieved should also be ascertained.

In conclusion the achievement of 67% in the Annual Report showed a performance growth but specific targets still require attention. Crime intelligence targets were met but processes were required to stabilise crime intelligence. SAPS could do more than their current achievements and accountability should be encouraged.

Discussion
Mr Ndlovu asked about the bullet proof vests and what the problem actually was. He queried why members would choose not to wear them if they were made available. Also, the anti-corruption strategy did not appear to be effective and asked what else could be done here.

Ms Kohler-Barnard asked about the revision of the RAG and when this was due for completion.

Mr G Lekgetho (ANC) asked how much firearms were being over-supplied by.

The Chairperson was interested to hear when the new RAG had been established given that the census data was not yet available. She asked if it would not be better to redo the RAG after the census data came out.

Ms Mathomane responded to the questions on vests by saying that the reasons for this were unclear and that there were more than 100 000 vests in surplus. The anti-corruption strategy was a step in the right direction and the Annual Report showed that there had been increases in the number of corruption related charges. However, there was no indication of money being recovered. The issues surrounding RAG would be best addressed to SAPS themselves as the Secretariat was also curious. There was an indication that resources were not being allocated in line with the revised RAG but it had not yet been received.

South African Police Union (SAPU) submission
Mr Thabo Matsose, Second Vice President of SAPU, began with Public Order policing, saying that much had been done to transform the service into public order policing units. This was achieved using legislation and policy intervention as well as major investments. A new training curriculum had been developed and formal management and command structures introduced. The violent nature of recent public protests had presented increasing challenges to police. There was a view that police could not single handedly combat these situations and required collaboration with stakeholders. It was requested of the Committee to revive the role of Community Police Forums and Community Safety Forums.

In terms of the Ministerial Ten Point Plan introduced to combat police killings, this had been welcomed but it remained a very serious issue. Many officers were killed when off duty as they lived in the same area they were required to police. This made them vulnerable when off duty and without backup. A number of questions were raised over the efficacy of the Ten Point Plan.

The promotion policy required intervention as it had a divisive effect and lowered morale. It was exploited in favour of nepotism and favouritism. The transformation agenda had also caused fast tracking of individuals that was not linked to merit – and unhappiness and confusion was often caused in the ranks due to this.

In implementation of Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSBC) agreements, there appeared to be hesitancy on the part of management to implement agreements. The example of agreement 2/2011 was given where the criteria of seniority and experience was being ignored in favour of promoting African females. There were also disparities between the Police Act and Public Service Act employees. There were differing wages for these positions even though they operated under the same conditions and did the same job. In Limpopo there had been 999 promotions even though only 300 posts were available.

Under fraud and corruption it was noted that this was a serious issue and that it threatened democracy. The union took a stern position on this and asked the Committee to join in the lobbying for the re-establishment of the anti-corruption unit.

In conclusion, Mr Matsose thanked the Committee for the opportunity to make submissions and encouraged greater oversight.

Discussion
Mr Ndlovu said that community based forums were created by the Committee and wanted to know what they should do further to aid their function. He asked how the implementation of agreements – forged in the bargaining chamber – were backed up in terms of enforcement.

Ms Kohler-Barnard asked what the union’s perspective was on the over-supply of vests. She queried threats of strike action following police murders and if there was any truth in this.

Ms A Molebatsi (ANC) asked about the SSSBC agreements and whether the problems experienced in Limpopo were restricted to that province. She asked why African females were singled out as being favoured.

Mr Lekgetho expressed concern over police killings and said that there did not appear to be a proposed solution. He asked for a recommendation from the union on this.

The Chairperson asked for specifics around the promotions in Limpopo. She also said that people covered by the two Acts should not be doing the same work in the first place and that their duties should not include administration.

Mr Barries Barnard, National Negotiator for SAPU, said that the community forums were non-functional due to underfunding and subservience to SAPS management. Rather than making independent assertions they followed SAPS’ lead. The policies for promotions were raised during the bargaining process and one of the key problems experienced was that SAPS was not willing to budge. The agreements were not enforceable in court but there were processes in place for repudiation. This particular agreement was for promotion to be based on seniority. It was therefore the union’s view that a court order could be issued for enforcement of the agreement. In terms of the bullet proof vests, the union felt that vests were not circulated. Each member was given a vest that was not replaced. There were also issues with the vests for females as these resources were not adequately available. The union was aware of threatening strike action in Pinetown, Kwa Zulu Natal. A delegation was being sent to deal with the issue. With regards to the SSSBC agreements and the 999 members promoted in Limpopo, Kwa-Zulu Natal had a similar number. Posts in other provinces were being used to retain personnel. In Limpopo and there was a lack of proper management in this regard. African females had been singled out as they had lower requirements for promotion from some positions to others and were therefore being favoured. Combating police killings required proper engagement between union members and management. There should possibly be stronger sentencing considerations for perpetrators.

Mr George asked about how many union members were involved in corruption.

Mr Barnard said that this figure was not available but it was known that union members were involved. Nevertheless, the incompetence of investigators resulted in ease of defending members charged with corruption.

The Chairperson said that this was concerning, as members charged with corruption should not be defended by the unions if they were guilty. Corruption within SAPS required collaboration from all stakeholders and the union should also be striving for anti-corruption.

SAPS Financial Performance 2011/12: briefing by National Commissioner and CFO
The Chairperson opened by reflecting on the number of police officers whose lives were lost in recent weeks. The Committee conveyed its condolences to the family members of the deceased police officers. She said that the time had come to express outrage at the senselessness of violence aimed directly at the police. An attack on the police was an attack on the state and the legislature needed to take a look at the laws that dealt with sentences for police-killers.

General Mangwashi Phiyega, National Commissioner of SAPS, began by expressing rejection and resentment over the killings of officers.

She said the report would be presented in terms of Section 40 and 65 of the PFMA. It contained general information on predetermined objectives, programme performance, financial statements and many other components. Overall it was shown that 38 out of 56 targets were achieved, a 68% success rate. This was briefly broken down according to programme.

Lieutenant General Stephan Schutte, Divisional Commissioner of Financial and Administration Services for SAPS, began the presentation on financial statements with the findings of the Auditor-General’s report. The first finding related to contingent liability for the lease contract of the Pretoria building. The Department of Public Works applied for a declaratory order in the Sanlam Middestad lease agreement for the court to make a ruling on the legality or otherwise of the lease agreement. These papers had been filed. The second finding involved investigation and conclusions on three contracts that were disclosed in the financial statements as “possibly irregular”. The final finding was the budget surplus amounting to R617, 416 million which was comprised mostly of under spending on capital infrastructure and the Criminal Justice Revamp.

Key spending priorities were identified as being the compensation of employees, investments in skills development and enhancement of IT technology. Revenue collected for the National Revenue fund was R288, 760 million. Sale of goods and services such as firearm licences and accident reports brought in R128, 1 million. Sale of scrap and other used goods generated R7, 5 million, while fines, penalties and forfeits brought in R25, 6 million. Interest received via corporate banks was R700 000, sale of capital assets came to R5.1 million, financial transactions in assets and liabilities brought in R121 million and local and foreign aid assistance received for the year was R23,165 million.

Lt General Schutte then gave a variance analysis according to Programme. In Administration the under spending of 2.9% was in respect of supply chain management, specifically clothing and capital works. Due to spending pressures experienced with compensation of employees, the amount due to Polmed payable in March 2012 had to compensate to allow for the payment of other compensation expenses in other programmes. In Visible Policing there was over spending of 1.1%. This was largely due to increased employee compensation and price pressures for fuel and oil. In Detective Services the budget was over spent by 3.4%, again largely due to compensation pressures but also due to planned increases in expenditure on machinery and equipment. There was also additional funding diverted to Specialised Investigations from Programme Five for capital purchases. Crime Intelligence was overspent by a negligible 0.5% due to compensation allocation. Finally, Protection and Security Services under spent by 2.1%.

Discussion
Mr George asked about the targets mentioned by the National Commissioner had mentioned. He asked how these targets were determined and by whom. Some of them were very low and even then not all were being met. He said that if SAPS were setting their own targets there was no reason why they should not be met. He also said that the variances were quite noticeable. Although the percentages were small, the absolute amounts were sizeable and he asked why this was the case that there was such high variance in either direction from the budgets.

Ms Kohler-Barnard said that there appeared to be worse performance financially than previous years. The under spending was massive even though only a small percentage. She asked for an explanation.

Ms Molebatsi wanted to know about the R617 million that remained unspent and what measures were in place to avoid a reoccurrence.

Ms D Sibiya (ANC) asked if the Department had taken any steps to rectify the Auditor-General’s findings.

Mr Ndlovu asked for clarity on the components of the under expenditure.

The Chairperson observed that the unqualified audit was not a clean audit. This was not admirable, as a clean audit should be the objective. SAPS were highlighted as stagnating rather than improving. She asked what was being done to correct this. In terms of the Auditor-General’s report there was exposure to critical focus areas that are central to the Department. IT Exposure was inadequate. Of greatest concern was the unreliability of figures. This needed to be corrected urgently. There were two cases of irregular expenditure that had not been condoned. She asked for light to be shed on these instances. She also emphasised that there appeared to be no consequences for failures within SAPS and that this was unacceptable. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure was not being met with disciplinary action. Finally she asked why there had not been sufficient planning in the budget for Detective Services. She also said that according to Treasury quarterly reports had to either include or exclude commitments. This had to be done consistently, and it had not been.

General Phiyega responded to the question surrounding targets, saying that many of these were being revised and refined so as to properly allow for measurement of performance.

Lt General Schutte dealt with variances by saying that there were a number of causes but that Programme Three would be more illuminating in that regard. However, the Capital Works environment and the building of Police Stations had not yielded the intended returns. Further, there was non-performance of contractors, high profile contracts that were delayed pending treasury approval. In the IT environment there were certain specialised procurement aspects that had not always occurred as planned or on time. These and other aspects would be discussed in greater detail when dealing with each Programme in isolation. He also confirmed that SAPS strove towards a clean audit from the Auditor-General, saying that two of the issues were relatively new and one was contingent on court action. In the procurement environment mitigation and legal vetting were being sought. In terms of commitments, only pure expenses were included in reports. Only when the cash actually left SAPS accounts would it be included in the quarterly reports.

General Phiyega went on to discuss performance by saying that SAPS were not satisfied themselves. She went on record saying that challenges encountered, especially with Public Works should be noted, and mentioned requesting greater responsibility from them.  Methods and channels of collaboration were being pursued and on the previous day it had been recommended to hold a joint portfolio Committee session. A draft report including steps to be taken in dealing with the findings in the Auditor-General’s report had been submitted and she offered to report back to the Committee on their contents and implementation.

The Chairperson mentioned that she was unconvinced that SAPS was deserving of more responsibility from the Department of Public Works. In the Committee’s experience SAPS performed far worse than the Department with these responsibilities. This had become abundantly clear from station visits were basic facilities were not being properly maintained despite more than adequate funding.

Ms Kohler-Barnard followed up on the building environment and the non-performance of contractors. She asked who was appointing contractors or if they were done through tender processes and why contractors who were not delivering were consistently being hired. She also asked about irregular expenditure which had increased dramatically in recent years, allegedly due to a single incident. She asked if that money had been recovered or written off and what the outcome of the investigation had been.

Mr George said that he was getting the impression that the money being discussed was not the property of Government or SAPS but was in fact tax payers’ money. He expressed hope that SAPS would convince the Committee that they were genuinely seeking a clean audit. With the gap between the rich and the poor widening budgets needed to be treated with much more respect.

The Chairperson said that the senior members of SAPS had not changed much in the previous six months and yet the issues were unresolved. She asked for assurance that this would not also be the case in six months’ time.

General Phiyega said that SAPS needed to be responsive as role-players in South Africa. She expressed a commitment to improvement through active engagement with other Departments and effective implementation of policies. There was a need for a paradigm shift in favour of cross-departmental collaboration. She also said that one of the turn-around issues was the pursuit of an internal audit so as not to rely solely on external auditors.

General Schutte explained that there had been planning for increased expenditure on Detectives but that when opportunities arose additional spending had been pursued due to the prominence of the Programme. In terms of the investigation into irregular expenditure he recommended discussing it in detail under Programme Three as he was not immediately aware of its status.

Programme One: Administration
Lieutenant General Nkayishane Mazibuko, Acting Deputy National Commissioner for Human Resource Management at SAPS, opened this portion of the presentation with a comparison of actual performances to targets. The objective of the Sub-Programme: Ministry, Management, Corporate Services and Office Accommodation was to regulate the overall management of the Department and provide centralised support services. The indicator for this aspect was the percentage of personnel in terms of the approved establishment of which the target of 99.3% was exceeded by 1.4%.The target had consistently been complied with over the past few years. Leave Management had decreased since 2012/11 but was still higher compared to years before that. There had been a revision of the National Instruction in this regard. There were 26 promotions under Regulation 45 (9), a decrease from 48 and 32 for the previous two years.

Major General Kaine Monyepao, Acting Divisional Commissioner of Human Resource Utilisation for SAPS, said that there was a priority to capacitate detectives. There had been an increase in Detective numbers of 2.13% at stations and 8.45% in Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit. CR & FSS numbers grew by 9.58% and Crime Intelligence grew by 3.83%. An equity profile was presented in terms of race and gender. The proportion of members of SAPS that were African was still below target but it was believed that this would be met in the near future. The target for disabled employees was not being met, with only 0.74% of members being disabled rather than 2%.

Lieutenant General Christabel Mbekela, Divisional Commissioner of Human Resource Development for SAPS, said that in terms of the percentage of learners declared competent upon completion of their training, the target was to maintain 88%. This target was exceeded, with 90% of members being declared competent. However, compensation expenditure compared to operational expenditure realised a ratio of 73.2%/26.8% rather than the targeted 71%/29%. Of the 9.8% of members that appeared as not being competent in the report, many had since been declared competent. Basic training figures were presented according to sector, including Basic Police Department and Introductory Training, Lateral Entry Learning Programme. Overall Operational Training saw only 88% of participants being declared competent. It was shown that Operational Training had gained priority over support training steadily over the past eight years. Further competency rates were shown for specific training interventions. There was a backlog of untrained detectives from 2010/2011 amounting to 4845. Of these 1524 were trained, an improvement on the target of 1384. It was also shown that there were 111 interns placed at division/component and124 interns placed at provinces. 23.8% of the interns obtained permanent positions.

General Leah Mofomme, Deputy National Commissioner of Physical Resources Management for SAPS, discussed Supply Chain Management. In terms of bullet proof vests and firearms the target for procurement and distribution of 100% was met. Unfortunately only 86% of firearms were dot peen marked as opposed to the target of 100%.The target ratio of 4.51:1 for personnel to vehicles was achieved. The target of 70% police facility projects being completed was met. There were nine new facilities, four newly re-established facilities, five re-established facilities and four repaired and upgraded facilities. There was a target of 90% capacity projects being completed, but only 30.6% were actually completed. Electricity and Water provision targets were not met, nor were targets relating to provision of sanitation. This was explained as having been due to inadequate capacity, non-responsive bidders, poor performance of service providers and reliance on the Department of Public Works.

Losses and Recoveries of firearms were compared to the previous year, with losses decreasing from 1338 to 167 and recoveries accordingly decreasing from 885 to 146. Marking of firearms was being done in terms of bar coding and with the unique SAPS emblem. Integrated Ballistics Information System ensured that SAPS had firearm profiles for all units. There were bi-annual inspections and certifications and well as daily inspections within Divisions and Provinces, stock-takes and other methods of firearm management described. There was an achievement of 86% of markings for the dot peen system, with 33 043 outstanding. 26% had been test fired as at 31 March. A list of uncompleted projects was given as well as those completed. The uncompleted projects would roll over to 2012/12.

General Bonginkosi Ngubane, Divisional Commissioner of Financial and Administration Services for SAPS, began his presentation on Technology Management Services by admitting that only 54.4% of IS/ICT annual funded projects were completed in 2011/12 as opposed to the target of 70%. Reasons for this included tenders and contracts not being awarded or signed, duplications of radio call signs and configurations, shortage of SITA programmers and a change of user requirements. Details of success rates were given for each specific project. The extensive overviews included the status of each project and the reasons for deviation from the target, if any.

The session was adjourned for the day.