Question NW2810 to the President of the Republic
19 September 2022 - NW2810
Steenhuisen, Mr JH to ask the President of the Republic
With reference to the expenses on catering and accommodation amounting to R600 million in each year, which is an average of R1,4 million per day that was incurred by the SA Police Service (SAPS) since Mr B H Cele became Minister of Police on 26 February 2018, while over the same time period, SAPS has reduced its frontline personnel, detectives and reservists while more and more citizens of the Republic are being raped and murdered, what conditions need to pertain before he will consider replacing the Minister of Police with someone who is able to provide the leadership that the Republic’s police service so desperately requires, if this approach to allocating scarce public resources and the current crime levels do not constitute sufficient reason?
Reply:
The expenditure of the South African Police Service (SAPS) on catering and accommodation since February 2018 was incurred in the fulfilment of the constitutional and statutory responsibilities of the police.
Like all other expenditure items in the SAPS budget, catering and accommodation are a normal part of the cost of running a police service.
This includes instances where officials have to be accommodated away from their normal place of work due to specific operational needs and deployment requirements. Examples in recent years include public order interventions in various provinces, securing the national and local government elections, deployments in response to COVID-19, and deployments to police the July 2021 unrest.
There is no reason to replace a Minister on the basis of expenditure that forms part of the operational requirements of a police service.