Police skills audit must start with Crime Intelligence, says Ian Cameron

The chairperson of parliament’s police portfolio committee said on Tuesday that the skills audit for senior police officers it recommended last year should start with the fraught Crime Intelligence division.  

Ian Cameron made the remarks during parliament’s weekly committee cluster media briefing alongside other security cluster chairs.

He said Police Minister Senzo Mchunu “seems [to] understand the vital role that crime intelligence should play with regards to successful policing” but added that the committee didn’t “fully agree with Mchunu’s moratorium based on recruitment”.

Mchunu wrote to national police commissioner Fannie Masemola in December telling him to halt the filling of vacant posts at provincial and national level in Crime Intelligence, and to disband the country’s political killings task team.

Cameron said the police committee was “extremely, extremely concerned about faction fights within the crime intelligence environment, [which feel] a bit like a political chess match is being played”.

The division — which has a budget of about R4.7 billion and a top heavy structure — has been plagued by infighting and scandal for years, in large part because of its lucrative secret service account, over which there are inadequate controls for monitoring expenditure.

The trial of former crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli  — accused of fraud, corruption and contravening the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act — for liberally using secret service funds for personal matters, is finally to take place in April this year.

The division has also repeatedly been accused of protecting senior officials from investigation, leading to frequent shifts in leadership depending on who is in power and who needs protection.

In the most recent scandal, as reported by News24, the division paid R22.7 million from its  secret service account to buy a boutique hotel in Pretoria using one of its front companies. The reason for the purchase has been questioned by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and ActionSA. The DA has written to the office of the inspector general for intelligence, asking that the purchase be investigated. 

Cameron said it was important that the purchase “be interrogated by the committee and the joint standing committee on intelligence as the procurement thereof, and specifically in terms of the procurement, falls under the joint standing committee on intelligence”.

While infighting continued in Crime Intelligence, South Africans were “left vulnerable,” said Cameron.

The committee would hold “robust sessions or discussions to scrutinise the chaos within that specific division and environment”, he said.  

In the committee’s budgetary review and recommendations report last October, Cameron said a skills audit of South African Police Service (SAPS) senior management should be conducted “to ensure that leaders possess the competencies necessary to meet the current and future needs of the organisation”.

He reiterated that on Tuesday, saying a skills audit must confirm general fitness to hold office.

Cameron said the committee was steadfast in its call for increased funding for detective services and crime intelligence, because they were “vital components in crime prevention and investigation”. 

“Adequate resourcing of these units is critical to ensuring they have the necessary tools, technology and personnel to operate effectively,” he said. 

He said the committee also “noted with concern” reports — it had not officially been informed of such — that SAPS was to close its Inspectorate Analysis Centre and Service Complaints unit, which deals with public complaints, given the significant role that the unit played in accountability, oversight and service delivery within the police service.

“The committee views this development as detrimental to the broader efforts and its strengthening governance and operational effectiveness of the South African Police Service,” said Cameron.

“We’ve come to a point now where we simply cannot handle the amount of complaints we often get, and then it becomes even more worrying that they consider closing a critical division like this.”

He said the committee would summon Mchunu and Masemola “to provide a detailed explanation” about “the motivation for the closure, the anticipated impact of oversight functions and the measures that will be put in place to ensure continued accountability and transparency within SAPS”.

“The committee is particularly concerned that such a decision could further weaken the already fragile accountability framework [in SAPS].”