HIGH CASE LOAD FOR DETECTIVES WORRIES POLICE COMMITTEE

There are about 17000 detectives responsible for the entire population in South Africa, something that leads to high case load that each detective must handle at a time. This, according, to the management of the South African Police Service (SAPS) is one of the contributing factors to the non-achievement of set targets for programme 3 in the 1st quarter of the 2023/24 financial year.

The senior management of the SAPS briefed the Portfolio Committee on Police recently on the performance of the SAPS in the 1st quarter of the 2023/24 financial year. The committee raised a concern with underperformance of SAPS on programme 3 which is detective services.

The committee was informed that of the 24 performance targets the programme could only achieve 10 at a success rate of 47.62%. ‘We acknowledge the concern with attrition rate of detectives and the inability to replace those members at the same rate of attrition, but effective and succession planning by SAPS management will ensure that there are available pla
ns in place to mitigate the high turnover rate and high docket to a detective rate,’ said Mr Nocks Seabi, the Chairperson of the committee.

SAPS told the committee that they are facing a serious challenge with the high turnover of members of the detective services. They said some of the detectives are attracted by jobs that are paid more than their jobs in other government departments and in the private sector. ‘We are faced with the challenge in the environment that our members are being taken by the private sector and other government departments such as IPID and the Hawks and the recruitment into the environment has not kept up with the rate of attrition,’ said Major General Shadrack Sibiya, the Deputy National Commissioner for Detectives.

SAPS informed the committee that it was putting in place strategies to mitigate the loss of human resource by, among others, reenlisting some of the members that went into other environments within the SAPS and prioritization of the detective services with new members
that are currently in training.

Meanwhile, the committee has urged the SAPS management to come up with strategies to mitigate the impact of load-shedding and water shortages that lead to loss of production at Forensic Science Laboratories. The committee was informed that the SAPS did not meet some of the targets due to the impact of loadshedding and water shortages, especially in Gauteng laboratories.

The committee heard that the worst thing was that there was non-compliance with taking of buccal samples from schedule 8 offenders with 81% samples taken against a target of 100%. While the committee was assured that at national and provincial levels there are sufficient stock levels buccal sample, it is concerning that some police stations delayed ordering samples and that eventually leads to non-achievement of targets.

The committee called on the supply management unit of the SAPS to monitor stock levels of buccal samples at police station level and to ensure the procurement of alternative energy and water
sources for Forensic Science Labs.

‘We will continue to monitor the performance of Programme 3 as we consider it critical to effective crime fighting. SAPS management must implement all the plans they have to ensure that they meet their set targets,’ Mr Seabi concluded.

Parliament of South Africa