By Kaya 959 News
More than 4 000 police officers are facing disciplinary action.
This was revealed by SAPS Divisional Commissioner for Human Resource Management, Lieutenant General, Lineo Ntshiea. The top three provinces showing the highest number of misconduct were Free State, Gauteng and the Western Cape.
Crime Intelligence, Visible Policing and forensic services reported the highest number of cases.
Ntshiea said for the 2020/2021 financial year, they have probed 3 401 disciplinary cases involving at least 4 438 members.
Ntshiea said the cases range from rape to torture and assault, death in police custody, corruption and death as a result of police action.
“Of the 4,087, a total of 686 are Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) related cases involving 1,270 members. There are 3,401 other cases relating to corruption, irregular expenditure related cases as well as sexual assault,” Ntshiea said.
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Cops suspended, dismissed
Of the 3,401 cases, 271 members had been suspended and 167 employees were dismissed.
She said 1 454 cases involved constables while 1 379 were sergeants, 699 were warrant officers, 292 were captains and 341 were public service administration employees.
“About 146 lieutenant-colonels faced disciplinary action including 69 colonels, 44 brigadiers, 13 major-generals and one lieutenant-general,” she said.
Ntshiea said 550 cases were reported after lockdown regulations were implemented last year.
Calls for integrated responses
The Portfolio Committee on Police has called on SAPS and Ipid to integrate their responses to questions posed by the committee on discipline management and the processing of cases against police officers.
Chairperson of the committee, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, told SAPS and Ipid that their presentations contradicted one another on very serious matters, including statistics on police officers’ assault, rape, torture and display of firearms cases.
“Your presentations do not talk to each other, and that diminishes the objective of this session to assess progress on your work regarding application of consequences for perpetrators of misconduct and crime,” she said.
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The committee expressed its unhappiness about the ineffectiveness of the work of both institutions on matters of police discipline.
It told SAPS and Ipid that at the core of the problem is a lack of consequence management following Ipid’s recommendations to SAPS.
The committee said that in the past three years only lip service has been paid to the application of consequences for misconduct and crimes.
Heads of both institutions promised their cooperation.
The Deputy Minister of Police, Cassel Mathale, also assured the committee of closer cooperation between Ipid and Saps.
“The entities were created purely to complement each other, not for something else,” he said.
Joemat-Pettersson said the committee will call on SAPS and Ipid to appear again and they will be given enough time before that to present a unified report detailing how they will deal with matters of discipline within SAPS ranks.
