Legal Practice Council Regulations; Constitution 18th A/B; IPID & CSPS 2023/24 APP; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Passage of the Constitution’s 18th Amendment Bill [B1 - 2023].

The Chairperson said the National Assembly had approved the report by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) on the passage of the Constitution’s 18th Amendment Bill [B1-2023] (Sign Language). The purpose of the Bill was to amend Section 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, to include South African Sign language as an official language.

The Bill was crucial as it promoted the rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. Parliament had to consider whether the scope of the Bill required a supporting vote from the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for the sake of complying with Section 74 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, or whether only the adoption of the Bill by the National Assembly was required. The presentation would focus on Parliament’s circulated legal opinion on the matter.

Presentation by the Parliamentary Legal Advisor

Dr Barbara Loots, Parliamentary Legal Advisor, said the specific focus of the Bill was to add South African Sign Language to the official languages as outlined in Section 6(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (as amended). The Bill did not deal with language policy matters or the use of languages for Government purposes. The Bill was outside the jurisdiction of the provinces as they were not involved in determining the official languages nationally.

The considerations of Section 74(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, clearly outlined the constitutional amendments for Section 1, Chapter 2, and other provisions of the Constitution like those dealing with boundary issues and issues regulated by provinces, which required a vote by the NCOP. The scope of the Bill was quite narrow and did not fall within those categories; thus, it was not necessary for the NCOP to vote to process the Bill to the President for signing.

However, the Committee was invited to comment on or support the Bill as a policy or political position because any Committee in Parliament had the authority to report any crucial issues it had on the Bill to its respective house. The Committee was invited to make a short statement or a report stating that the Bill was an important development as it supported the idea of equality and dignity, especially since not only Sign language but South African Sign language was being acknowledged and would give people greater access and support when it came to the fulfilment of rights.

Support for the Constitution 18th Amendment Bill [B1-2023]

The Chairperson said the Bill was important as it promoted the constitutional rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons, and she imagined that the Committee would support the amendment to fulfil those rights. She reminded the Committee that, as per the presentation, it could make a declaration to support the amendment. Assuming that the Committee was content with the presentation. She thanked Dr Loots for the presentation and clarified to the Committee that the Bill did not seek to amend any provisions in the interest of provinces as set out in Section 74 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Thus there was no need for the NCOP to vote on the Bill. She said the Committee needed to adopt the report because the NCOP would be able to communicate the Committee’s support for the amendment and political parties would also make their declaration. See full report here https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/5331/

The Chairperson, giving a brief introduction to the IPID, said the IPID had an important responsibility as an oversight body over the South African Police Services (SAPS) and Municipal Police Services (MPS). It also investigated serious crimes and crimes allegedly committed by a member of the police service and made appropriate recommendations on such cases.

Deputy Minister Opening Remarks

Mr Cassel Mathale, Deputy Minister of Police, said appearing before the Committee was an honour and privilege. The appointed representatives from the IPID and CSPS would present their APPs and Budget allocations for the 2023/24 financial year.

Independent Police Investigations Directorate (IPID) 2023/24 Annual Performance Plan and Budget

Ms Dikeledi Ntlatseng, Executive Director, IPID, said the purpose of the presentation was to brief the Committee on the IPID’s 2023 MTEF Budget, APP for the 2023/24 financial year, and the adjustments made to the 2020-2025 strategic plan. The total budget allocation for 2023/2024 was R364.3 million with 67.5% (R246 million) allocated to the compensation of employees. A total of 13 929 active cases had been carried over to the 2023/24 financial year. In the 2022/23 financial year, 3 965 cases were completed, and 53% of those cases (2 093) were backlog cases.

Challenges

The IPID faced the following challenges:

• Capacity constraint challenges due to the high case workload which ultimately affected the turnaround time for completing investigations.

• the IPID’s capacity was not sufficient to service a total of 1500 estimated police stations and 193 police officers.

• Supervisors had to conduct investigations due to the shortage of investigators. That impacted the quality of investigations and the provision of effective supervision to subordinates.
• A limited footprint which affected service delivery and impacted the response time to crime scenes.
• The Ineffectiveness of the case management system.
• Potential threats and risks to IPID investigators.

• IPID members were threatened for conducting their investigations. Recently, a few IPID members arrested metro police officers in Ekurhuleni. When the police officers were out on bail, some IPID members were threatened, and one informer was killed.

Appointments

The IPID appointed three Quality Assurers to strengthen the quality of its investigations.

Satellite offices

Satellite offices were established through collaborations with the provincial Department of Community Safety in the following regions:

• Gauteng: Temba, Heidelberg, Westonaria, and Mabopane
• KwaZulu/Natal: Port Shepstone, Port Dunford, Kwambonambi and Mkuze
• Northern Cape: Kuruman, Springbok, and Upington

Mr Patrick Setshedi, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), IPID, and Ms Suzan Letlape, Director: Strategy and Performance Monitoring, IPID, also presented on the IPID’s APP and budget for the 2023/24, financial year.

[See Attached APP for details]

Discussion

Ms M Bartlett (ANC, Northern Cape) asked if progress had been made with expanding the IPID’s footprint. How would provincial investigations be benefited from the expansion? Were there any unresolved expansion-related challenges? Could the IPID provide more information on its Information Technology and Communications (ICT) plans and policies? Why was the IPID not fully utilising its budget as highlighted by the National Treasury?

Ms A Maleka (ANC, Mpumalanga) asked about the implementations the IPID would make to improve its quality of investigations on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) cases. How would those improvements be achieved with the IPID’s capacity constraints? What motivated the IPID to include cell inspections as an indicator under Programme 2? What was the intention behind the indicator?

Ms M Dlamini (EFF, Mpumalanga) recalled that Thalente Msibi, a 17-year-old girl, was killed by a stray bullet fired by a police officer during a service delivery protest in Mkhondo. Upon enquiring with the IPID, the Msibi family could not get the case number for the incident. However, In the same week, a councillor was also shot in Mkhondo and an investigation was opened. The Minister and the Deputy Minister visited the municipality to send their condolences but failed to visit the Msibi family, who resided in the same municipality. What processes did the communities have to follow to hold SAPS accountable? Had there been any progress on the Msibi case and was the Deputy Minister aware of the case?

Mr E Mthethwa (ANC, KZN) asked if the IPID had a plan to decentralise its offices from the SAPS offices for ease of access by the public.

Mr G Michalakis (DA, Free State) said it had been mentioned in several briefings over the years that the IPID was becoming poorer and poorer in real terms. While the IPID's budget increased by four percent, inflation increased by seven percent. Although the budget had increased, in real terms, the IPID was not able to do much with its budget. He asked the Deputy Minister whether the Ministry had made any efforts to speak to the National Treasury about the Committee's concern with the IPID's budget decreasing in real terms, the consequences thereof, and the likelihood of receiving a budget increase. What was National Treasury's response to the requests, if any?

Mr T Dodovu (ANC, North West) recalled that National Treasury said despite the IPID’s financial constraints, it was underspending its allocated funds. Referring to the IPID and Mr Michalakis' comments on the need for a budget increase to fulfil the IPID’s duties, he asked why the IPID did not fully utilise its budget to create a need for more funds. Looking at the budget, the IPID was spending about 60%-70% annually on personnel while 30% was left to spend on other costs.

He said he looked at the IPID's 2022/2023 annual report, which indicated an increase in police brutality, murder in police custody, and rape in police custody cases. Those issues need to be addressed. The presentation mentioned that the IPID had a shortage of resources and capacity (e.g., a shortage of investigators) and thus was not able to carry out its duties fully. That was a huge concern because the IPID, as an independent institution, needed to make a substantial impact in ensuring that police brutality or other acts of corruption did not occur. The IPID needed to be protected and supported to achieve its objectives. There was a discussion in the public domain about making the IPID a Chapter 9 institution. Had the IPID had an internal discussion and what was its conclusion on the matter? The Committee wanted to be in that discussion.

The Chairperson asked why the IPID did not spend its budget fully while National Treasury wanted to increase its budget. Were there any material losses through criminal conduct, or unauthorised/irregular/fruitless expenditure in the previous financial year? if so, were reasonable steps taken to recover those material losses? Given the IPID’s capacity constraints with its investigations, what had the current staff morale look like, and what was being done to improve it? What had been done to reduce the backlog of cases and how many backlog cases were awaiting technical reports (i.e., post-mortems, DNA results, ballistics history, or toxicology reports)?

For accuracy purposes, the IPID could respond to the Committee in writing. With the current ineffective case management system, what progress had been made on the new one? What was the reason behind the decrease in the Western Cape’s budget while there was an increase in other provincial budget allocations? The IPID previously reported in its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Investigating Directorate (ID) that it would investigate both IPID and non-IPID cases under the ID’s guidance. Following that collaboration, how was the quality of the IPID’s investigations impacted?

Responses

Ms Ntlatseng said budgetary constraints limited the implementation of the expansion strategy. The IPID's capacity was still limited and set at 397 employees. However, people had been hired on a contract basis to assist in addressing the challenges faced by the IPID. In a future engagement with the Committee, the IPID would like to present its proposed expansion strategy which was based on the challenges it faced.

The IPID faced ICT-related challenges and developed an action plan to address them. With the CFO's support, the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) was requested to assist in addressing ICT challenges. A Director had been appointed to work closely with the SITA in implementing the ICT plan with hopes of improving the ICT environment. The IPID had an aging ICT infrastructure and replacing it was costly. The Disaster Recovery Plans (DRPs) had been properly serviced as per the findings in the report compiled by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA). The IPID also developed policies to address the gaps and loopholes in its ICT system.

She explained that when National Treasury said that IPID was not fully utilising its budget, it referred to the compensation of employees’ portion of the budget, not the total budget. In the 2022/2023 financial year, the IPID faced serious challenges with filling vacant positions which arose when some employees left the IPID. There were also delays in receiving the PSC as candidates were required to be screened before appointments were made. Additionally, candidates who were offered vacant positions declined the offers. The IPID also encountered a setback in appointing a senior employee. The IPID had discovered from the candidate’s previous employer that the candidate had faced some disciplinary action and consequently resigned from the entity due to the seriousness of the allegations. However, the IPID was determined to fill all vacant positions in the 2023/2024 financial year. Weekly meetings were held with the Human Resource Director to monitor the improvements in the vacancy rates. The IPID had contracted a company to assist with attaining the PSC quickly in the future.

To improve the quality of investigations, quality assurers were employed to assist with reducing the number of nolle prosecute and withdrawal cases. The NPA’s decision on some cases would be reviewed because the IPID was convinced that the cases sent to the NPA had sufficient evidence to convict. In a meeting, the NPA highlighted some discrepancies in the quality of investigations and the IPID was determined to fix those challenges raised as some of them were minor.

There was a delay in convictions on several cases sent to the NPA because there were many cases on the court roll. Provincial heads were actively ensuring that cases had quality investigations. In collaboration with legal services, the IPID was in the process of employing prep officers to prepare investigators to present their findings. Before appearing in court, investigators would have undergone a legal process to ensure they met a set of criteria. With a limited budget, the IPID was of the idea that legal services would attain court preparation officers who would work with investigators to maintain the quality of cases presented to the court.

The IPID was in the process of enrolling its investigators into the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). This body had extensive training on fraud, corruption, and other international practices. The ACFE would assist the investigators where there were challenges, especially in the legal section.

The cell inspection indicator was introduced following the high rise of deaths in police custody, especially in Kwa-Zulu Natal. The IPID wanted to interview prisoners/complainants to assess if there were any cases of harassment and torture and to get an understanding of the challenges they faced. Thus, the SAPS would also notice that IPID was monitoring the prisoners. The IPID also partnered with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) as they had a section dealing with torture and assault. The IPID would also comply with the UN on torture and assault as it continually wanted cell inspection reports.

She said she would revert to the Committee on Thalente Msibi’s case. She assured the Committee that the IPID was strengthening its relationship with communities and was in the process of meeting CPFs so that they became ambassadors of IPID and engaged the communities on the services that IPID would render to them. The IPID was seeing to it that the communities could access CPFs and that CPFs were reporting cases to the IPID. She highlighted that the IPID was currently operating from its nine provincial offices and not in the SAPS offices. The District Development Model had to be followed in establishing offices. Thus, the IPID requested the Department of Community Safety to accommodate them in their regional offices because working in regions meant that communities would be better accessed. Additionally, communities would be aware of the IPID's services, improving the IPID's service delivery.

A retention strategy would be implemented to retain employees. She clarified that employees leaving the IPID were mainly from the administration department. The IPID was determined to create a conducive environment for all its employees. She said she was aware of the external discussion of making the IPID a Chapter 9 institution. She informed the Committee about an IPID Amendment Bill which was currently being discussed and said the CSPS’s input was important in making the IPID an independent body, so it continued to operate without any fear or favour. With the IPID being independent, perhaps the National Treasury will be able to increase its budget, so it effectively discharged its oversight role.

The staff’s morale was currently very low, but the IPID was working tirelessly to improve that. Staff members highlighted upward mobility as an issue in the IPID. To resolve the matter, IPID started advertising its positions internally to allow employees to compete and occupy some positions. She was happy with the pace of the process as internal applications for vacancies had already started. She said the IPID had a close working relationship with the ID, and she was not aware of any existing challenges. To date, three investigators have been seconded to the ID and the IPID’s Chief Director also worked closely with the organisation.

As part of the backlog strategy, the IPID was in the process of hiring retired detectives to help with the backlog of cases. The SAPS’s Forensic unit was fully on board with assisting the IPID with technical and autopsy reports. The SAPS’s report submission turnaround time has improved since the IPID engaged them on the matter.  

The IPID was currently experiencing problems with its outdated case management system and a new one was required. The service provider and the IPID controlled the current system wanted to own and control the system through its ICT department. Working on the current system gave rise to flawed investigations.

Additionally, the IPID experienced delays in uploading cases onto the system. IPID was looking into a modified case management system where it would regulate the process of uploading the cases and ensure that the system was able to connect to other systems, such as the care system and the Justice system.

Mr Setshedi explained that when National Treasury said that the IPID was not fully utilising its budget, it was referring to the compensation of employees’ portion of the budget and not the total budget. In the 2022/2023 financial year, the IPID spent R359 million (99%) from a budget of R363 million allocated for the compensation of employees. Due to several positions being vacant, the IPID could not fully utilise its budget.

Additionally, the IPID had to second five investigators (including the Chief investigating officers) to the ID. The plan was to employ contract workers for the secondment period of 24 months. However, due to the nature of the investigating profession, vacancies on a contractual basis were difficult to fill. By the time the IPID filled those vacancies, the financial year had ended. Thus, leading to the underutilisation of the budget. The IPID had engaged National Treasury in increasing its budget during the MTEF period. An expansion strategy had been developed, quantified, and presented to National Treasury and other roleplayers. The expansion strategy also explained the IPID's intention to expand its footprint in various provinces. Additionally, it detailed the required resources, such as the required tools of trade for its investigators. The IPID was willing to present the expansion strategy to the Committee. The expansion strategy has been shared with the National Treasury since the 2017/18 financial year.

The IPID suffered no material losses due to criminal conduct or unauthorised expenditure in the 2022/23 financial year. However, a fruitless expenditure of R10 000 had been incurred due to interest charged to the Telkom account. The matter had been referred to the financial misconduct committee for further investigation and to determine the affected officials. Consequently, the R10 000 would be recovered in various transactions.

Due to the limitation on resources, the IPID operated on a zero-based budget annually. Each province was invited to pitch its prospective activities and initiatives to the IPID and to further motivate on how those initiatives would contribute to the broader mandate of the IPID. The Western Cape’s budget was adjusted for overtime as it was discovered during the budget application process that it had an abnormally high overtime expenditure. The IPID conducted an assessment on the Western Cape and discovered that investigators were completing normal time duties after hours and claimed overtime. The IPID indicated to the provincial management that its practice was not in line with the overtime policy. He acknowledged that the budget allocation to all provinces was not sufficient, but the IPID had to work with what it had.

Ms Sibongile Phalatsi, Director: Human Resources, IPID, said investigators were given a platform to express their concerns regarding communication-related matters and other conditions of service-related matters at the Investigation Indaba held in March 2023. A report was then drafted and a task team, representing the needs of all provinces, was established. To better understand the concerns on the condition of service at the ground level, the Executive Director identified senior managers to engage with the investigators. Those senior managers were also tasked with finding ways to improve the undesirable service conditions, thus creating a better working environment and retaining staff based on other factors besides the market-related salary paid to the investigators. The investigators appreciated the IPID’s efforts as they were able to engage with the Executive Director on urgent matters.

In the 2021/2022 financial year, management had to make a strategic decision to reprioritise the positions within the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) department and security management department. Certain functions were regrouped for the optimal utilisation of resources. The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) had to approve the organisational structure changes. However, the process was delayed as the recruitment process was halted and certain positions were put on hold until the optimal utilisation of the resources process was completed. With the reprioritisation process also taking place at the provincial level, five investigators had been identified and appointed to capacitate the provinces by assisting with case intakes. The reprioritisation process has been finalised and awaiting the DPSA’s approval. The IPID would continue with the reprioritisation process in the 2023/24 financial year.

The Executive Director had raised the issue of promotions and since October 2022, 26 appointments and 11 promotions have been made. The promotions addressed the retention issue and recognised the staff within the IPID.

Ms Suzan Letlape, Director: Strategy and Performance said the target for the two new indicators introduced under programme four had been set at 90% because the IPID was aware that for a case to be reviewed, the information had to be analysed by different Heads of Department (HODs) and investigating officers. In certain cases, more information needs to be attained from the relevant stakeholders. As all cases were different, not all of them would be assessed and sent for representation within 60 days, and thus the IPID aimed to ensure that at least 90% of the cases were reviewed within 60 days. To cater to circumstances outside the control of the IPID, 10% of the cases were set to be reviewed beyond the 60 days.

Deputy Minister Mathale said the Department of Police and National Treasury had engaged in budgetary increase discussions for the SAPS, CSPS, and IPID. He said he would revert to the Committee on Thalente Msibi’s case to avoid speculating.

Civilian Secretariat for Police Service CSPS 2023/24 Annual Performance Plan and Budget Allocation

Ms Itumeleng Ledwaba, Director: Strategic Management, CSPS, said the purpose of the meeting was to brief the Committee on the CSPS’s Budget and APP for the 2023/24 financial year.

The total budget allocation for 2023/2024 was R150.5 million. There was a noticeable 1% decrease in most programmes. However, there was an average budget increase of 2.6 % towards the end of the MTEF period.

Highlights

The highlights for the 2022/23 financial year were:

• The development of the second draft National Policing Policy, which provided policy direction for responding to the current policing, crime, and violence challenges in the Country.
• The finalisation of key legislation (DNA Bill and the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorism and Related Activities (POCDATARA) Amendment Bill).
• The facilitation of CPF training in various district municipalities across the Country.
• The Coordination of the Khayelitsha Crisis Response Summit in the Western Cape.
• Conducting of anti-crime campaigns on GBVF (in various provinces).
• The conclusion of a study on the monitoring of Exhibit Stores (SAPS 13), focusing on the Top 30 police stations nationally and provincially.
• The Finalisation of a report on the assessment of members’ perception, accessibility, and utilisation of the SAPSs’ Employee Health and Wellness Programme
• The finalisation, approval, and implementation of the revised Performance Information Management Policy to synchronise planning, budgeting, reporting, and risk management processes to enhance service delivery within the Department.

Challenges

She highlighted the following provincial challenges:

• Some provinces like the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga, Free State, North West, and Western Cape generally had insufficient resources within their monitoring and evaluation units.
• The unavailability of funds was the major contributing factor that negatively impacted the ability of provincial secretariats to increase their human capacity and effective implementation of crime prevention programmes.

[See attached APP for details]

Discussion

Ms Bartlett asked if the CSPS conducted surveys, in addition to its awareness campaigns, to determine the challenges faced by communities. What was the outcome of those surveys? What were the existing challenges with the large number of CSPS cases to be assessed besides capacity constraints?

Ms Maleka asked for more information on the Court Watch Brief Programme. How much capacity and resources did the programme utilise? She said the process of evaluating the implementation of the IPID’s recommendation was reliant on the SAPS and the IPID databases. Did the CSPS have sufficient access to the database and was the information reliable as compared to the significant difference in data provided previously by the SAPS and the IPID?

Mr Dodovu said it was very clear that the CSPS had a significant role to play, especially in policy development and legislation processing issues. What challenges impeded the CSPS from fulfilling its statutory obligations? He recalled that in the previous year, the CSPS was presented with the POCDATARA legislation, as amended. He said the CSPS was slow in processing the legislation and Parliament had to rush to conclude it, resulting in South Africa being grey listed. Without criticising the CSPS, he said the delays were due to the CSPS's pace in fast-tracking the process.

He said he was excited about the launch of the Crime Prevention Warden programme in Gauteng communities. The community-based programme gave its people the power to play an important role in finding criminals because the elected wardens and the community members knew where the criminals resided. He wondered if the CSPS would develop a national framework or research how such a programme would be implemented in major cities and secondary cities. The CPFs played a major role in voluntarily protecting communities and preventing criminal activities without expecting any compensation or receiving any uniform. Could a framework address how CPFs would be remunerated and supported?

He asked if the CSPS had developed an all-encompassing and inclusive counterterrorism strategy. If so, why was it not publicised to allow for discussions on the matter? Counterterrorism and terrorism financing were a reality that needed to be confronted in the future and South Africa needed to be ready as it could be a hub for terrorism.

Mr K Motsamai (EFF, Gauteng) asked when diligent community members, who were voluntarily fighting crime, would be recognised, as it was unfair for them to continue serving the community without being permanently employed.

The Chairperson highlighted that 461 police stations were found to be non-compliant with the DVA, while 137 police stations were found to have significant compliance. With the CSPS having taken initiatives to encourage more compliance through its compliance forums, focussed improvements plans, and capacity building, had the initiatives made any impact in improving the compliance levels of police stations? What was done to strengthen the level of coordination between the national and provincial CSPS given the fact that provinces allocated their budgets in line with the provincial priorities? She understood that the act of coordination was important to deal with the duplication of issues and other matters.

Responses

Mr Takalani Ramaru, Acting Secretary for Police, CSPS, said that satisfaction surveys were previously conducted to assess if communities were content with the services they received from the SAPS. The surveys also assessed the community's level of trust in the SAPS. Although the results showed low satisfaction and trust levels, the CSPS worked on improving that. Such surveys would also be conducted in the 2023/24 financial year.

The CSPS had an annual programme that assessed the functionality of the CPFs and where challenges were identified, mechanisms and programmes to assist and capacitate CPFs were established by the provincial CSPS. In the 2022/23 financial year, most CPFs had re-elections and with the new executive committees coming into office, there was a need for retraining and capacity-building sessions. With the addition of budgetary constraints, the CSPS was unable to capacitate a larger group of executives at a time, leading to a backlog of CPFs that needed to be capacitated.

The Court Watch Brief programme was a programme implemented at the provincial level with the national CSPS providing technical support. The programme followed the cases enrolled in court to identify cases that were not progressing, either due to being struck off the roll due to poor investigations or backlogs in DNA testing. Those cases would then be closely monitored. Specific focus was placed on the DVA and GBV cases. If cases were discovered to be struck off the roll due to the stated reasons, the CSPS, through the SAPS, ensured that the cases were re-enrolled in court and that proper investigations were conducted to ensure that the case proceeded to court. Resources were allocated to the provincial secretariat and the provinces would have different capacities in dealing with those cases.

The CSPS had access to the database of the SAPS and IPID. According to the legislation of the CSPS, when the IPID sent recommendations to the SAPS, they were also required to forward the same information to the CSPS. The CSPS would then be aware of the cases sent to the SAPS and immediately gain access to the case data. Additionally, the legislation empowered the CSPS to enquire with the SAPS on its progress with those cases. A forum, comprising the CSPS, IPID, and SAPS, had been established where monthly meetings were held to compare the statistics and recommendations of the SAPS and IPID. A consultative forum, chaired alternatively by the Secretary and the Executive Director of the police, met quarterly. The forum received the statistics on the IPID’s recommendations and if there were any challenges, the SAPS was invited to the forum.

The CSPS had the smallest budget which impacted its personnel capacity. Budgetary improvements in the last two years of the MTEF period (2024/25 and 2025/26) would assist the CSPS to increase its capacity in the development unit with two additional positions. One position would possibly be filled in the next few weeks while the other position would be filled in the future.

The CSPS was primarily focused on developing an enabling environment for CPFs. CPFs needed to be capacitated as they worked closely with the SAPS to fight crime. Even though the Crime Prevention Warden programme was not the focus, CSPS would investigate the programme and determine how it could assist in the fight against crime. The CSPS had the challenge of supporting CPFs. However, the Minister of Police had tasked both the CSPS and SAPS to find resources to support CPFs, prioritising the provision of tools of trade, uniforms, transportation, and communication devices. The CSPS was also looking for resources to address the stipend issue.

It was a concern that out of the 461 visited police stations, none were found to be fully compliant. Being the ideal compliance level, full compliance referred to police stations that were 80% compliant. Significant compliance ranged between 60% and 80%. The CSPS was working closely with the SAPS to ensure that police stations were reaching those compliance levels. When it became evident that police stations had challenges, the compliance forum established programmes to develop and improve the compliance level to 100%. The CSPS would be undertaking a census in the 2023/24 financial year that would determine the progress made on compliant police stations. The SAPS had ring-fenced some funds to address compliance and DVA issues. The CSPS hoped that the measures introduced would improve compliance levels.

The CSPS also had a HOD forum, which was chaired by the Secretary for Police. The forum, consisting of all HODs, met quarterly, with special meetings held when necessary. The forum dealt with sector indicators where the CSPS collaborated with the provincial secretariat on common indicators such as the DVA, IPID recommendations, etc. The CSPS had joint projects with provinces to avoid duplicating its efforts. When collaboratively working on one project, the CSPS ensured that it designated certain areas to the provinces while the national office focused on other areas.

Ms Ledwaba said the CSPS had embarked on a process to develop a sector plan for its sector which was based on the recommendations provided by the National Treasury and the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME). The sector priorities featured in the sector plan were:

• The institutionalisation of community policing
• Improving the levels of trust in the police through various interventions
• Developing a standard-setting function
• Facilitating the implementation of an integrated crime and violence prevention strategy
• Measures to advance the transformation of the police.

Deputy Minister Mathale said initially, CPFs were seen as a platform through which community members could participate in policing their communities voluntarily. He recalled that CPFs did not benefit when the Government established various community initiative incentive schemes. Provinces then dealt with the CPF’s shortcomings in different ways. However, he agreed that CPFs needed to be assisted with tools of trade, to carry out their duties. CPFs did not have to cover any operational costs. The CPF matter was further discussed with the SAPS and would potentially be escalated to the President.

The CSPS had identified resources to be allocated to CPFs. However, the resource allocation process would be concluded once the budget was finalised. While not all CPFs would be resourced initially, the focus would be establishing that process in provinces and providing CPFs with uniforms and communication devices. Ms Faith Mazibuko, MEC for Community Safety in Gauteng, had been tasked with presenting the lessons learned from the Western Cape, Gauteng, and Limpopo CPFs and developing an approach to CPFs in South Africa. Through an amendment to the CSPS legislation, CPFs needed to operate independently of the SAPS and be transferred to operate under the CSPS.

The Chairperson thanked the Deputy Minister and the CSPS for the presentation and encouraged the CSPS to continue monitoring the functioning of the CPFs as they work with the SAPS in fighting crime. She also encouraged the CSPS to continue in its role of monitoring the implementation of the DVA and the recommendations made by IPID.

Committee Matters

The Committee considered and adopted the Legal Practice Act (LPA) regulations.

The meeting was adjourned.